Secret of the Silver Bow IV: The Reurn of Orion
by To Thine Own Self Be True101
Summary: Spring is here, the birds are chirping, the brook is babbling, and Shamrock is getting into trouble. Again. When he is summoned to the Underworld the least Hades could've done was send a ride, because now he has to trek across the country on and emotional roller coaster, and is forced to face feelings he didn't know existed. Just another normal day in the life of Shamrock.
1. April Showers and May Flowers

Secret of the Silver Bow Part VI: The Return of Orion

Key – _The Wild_

_**The Conscious**_

_**The Instinct**_

_Shamrock_

One

_Secret of the Silver Bow fun Fact 1: The original title was going to be "Change" The title Secret of the Silver Bow only came around after the first one had been finished, and the Second one was well into the first chapter._

April Showers and May Flowers

Shamrock

The last two months have been great, some of the best in my short meaningless life. The weather warmed up, I traveled with my mom and the hunters, and spent a couple of days over spring break in West Virginia with Will Solace, my cousin. Right now though we were in the Shenandoah Valley with my mom, Grace and I were down by a river doing some laundry when Thalia came by. She knelt next to me and watched my scrub my shirt. It was unnerving, under her electric blue gaze.

"Um hi." I said.

"Hi." She chirped.

"What are you doing?" I wondered.

"Oh yeah, I was supposed to tell you, your mom had to go away on immortal business so don't cause any – oh my gods look at that blue jay!" She said, I looked up and she drew her bow and killed it.

"Why did you do that?" I asked, it seemed a bit mean to kill something like that for no apparent reason..

She shrugged. "It woke me up, at four in the morning, the little bird was just asking to be made into fried chicken." Her scowl changed to a smile. "Anyway just stay out of trouble, and we need to go to camp, but we're going to make an, uh, detour first."

"Okay." I said, she nodded and left us alone, Grace was taking the dry clothes off the clothes line. Her wavy red hair was in a ponytail and her plain green hunting tunic, that emphasized those green eyes, hung loosely on her body. She turned and caught me staring.

"What?" She wondered, tucking a lose piece of hair behind her ear as she studied me.

"Oh nothing, I'm just finished with the clothes." I held up the shirt, she nodded and took it from me. Together we walked back into camp, I was pretty happy, the camp had been calmer than it ever had been for me, the full moon was coming and I was content at the moment. Grace wasn't though, she never really liked spring, she said it was a week from now that her family died.

Between us things had gotten a little better, she seemed more relaxed around me and I felt more comfortable when she checked up on the bite, which was now no more than a scar but we still had to make sure it didn't open up because Vampire wounds are very temperamental

Lilly was doing well, she would still Iris Message Jake and things but she fit into the hunter's role much better than I had at first, and the others had finally accepted me. Accept, didn't mean they liked me though, I believe a majority of them still disliked having me around but, that was their problem. Over all Lilly and I didn't get along great yet, we might over time but I had a feeling there were lots of things we would never see eye-to-eye on. Mom had decided that since we were twins we would be sharing a tent, and she was messy.

Not normal teenage messy no, the Obsessive Compulsive Disorders worst nightmare messy, yes, it was awful. I have OCD and she hates it when I pick up her side, something about being, messily organized, but trust me that is not organized. Since all we have to do is snap out fingers to pack the tents the mess stays that way. It drives me insane, Grace says I am welcome to spend time in her tent and I used to, but then I didn't need to see her bra on the floor. She says that if I hadn't come in at six am, when she was down at the creek bathing I wouldn't have seen that but I beg to differ.

We got back to camp and the whole camp had been packed up, which at least meant I didn't have to look at the mess, but in the back of my mind it was still there, lurking like a monster, waiting to come out and get me. Grace and I stuck our clothes in our back packs and shouldered them. After that we started to walk. The ability to bend space and time with that hunter speed comes in really handy; we were soon in New York. Thalia put me in charge and said she was going to see Percy, she also said that if I so much as thought about abusing the power, or getting any of us, myself included into life or death situations that I would never be left in charge again.

The girls made me wait outside while they changed into their bathing suits, I wasn't really sure why but they made me promise not to come in and then went down to the lake but I was staying in the cabin. I needed to get some time alone, which I hardly got now a days.

I would have gone to sleep but I had recently had nightmares, mostly about the Delaware incident. Grace or Lilly had been waking me up, Lilly was a little violent she would throw a pillow at me or something (Usually something hard and heavy, like a book), and Grace was calmer and more gentle she would stay with me until I fell asleep again, which was nice. It was Lilly most of the time though (which was not so nice) because we shared a tent, but if Grace was up to go to the bathroom or something she would come by and make sure I was okay.

I crossed the room to the large silver dresser; each of us had our own drawers to keep our things in. Nothing was in mine except for a small wooden box, I had never opened the box, I had never touched the box, I didn't even know how it had gotten in there. Apollo or Mom most likely, I hadn't told either one of them, something told me not to tell them I knew. It had appeared just after Orion left, in February. The top of the box had a crescent moon and my name carved into the top. As though mesmerized by the box I reached down to stroke it, just as I was about to touch it the door opened.

"Shamrock?" It was Grace, She sounded slightly puzzled.

"Yes." I said, turning around and kicking the drawer closed.

"Nico needs to talk to us." She said warily.

"Just you and I?" I asked.

"Yes, he said Lilly already knows." She muttered, motioning for me to fallow her. Instead of going to cabin 13 we went to the big house, Lilly, Annabeth, Percy, Rachel, and Nico were waiting with Chiron.

"Okay what I miss?" I asked.

"You have been summoned to the- Rachel!" Nico started but Rachel started flopping and sputtering, her eyes turned a smoky green, and green smoke came out of her mouth and ears. It was disgusting, that couldn't be natural, or normal.

"Hello Shamrock." She croaked, only it wasn't her voice, it was the voice of someone much older, ancient practically. "I am the Oracle of Delphi, Speaker of the prophecies of Pheobus Apollo approach seeker and ask."

It was as though I had no control over my own actions. I moved forward. "What must I do to find my father?" I didn't even know what I was saying, but I felt oddly calm for being out of control.

"_Five will go west to the land of death_

_One will leave in the land of the grain_

_Four will continue to the land of toxic breath_

_One will remain with extreme pain_

_Four will enter the Underworld_

_Six will come out to the land of the sun_

_And reach Olympus as the day is done" _Rachel steadied herself and looked at me.

"A prophecy has been issued. Shamrock who will you take with you?" Chiron said. I looked around.

"Grace and Lilly." I said slowly, she nodded. I turned. "Annabeth." Annabeth nodded. "Percy." Percy looked up from the Diet Coke can he had been kicking around.

"Where are we going?" He asked. Annabeth rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand.

"We'll go pack. We can leave tonight." She said.

I frowned. "Hold up, did anyone notice that poem had a different rhyme scheme?"

"A what?" Percy asked.

"Well most prophecies are AA, BB, AA but this one was ABABCAA it had one more line and that extra line had no rhyme." I said.

"You seriously notice these things?" Percy asked.

"He's right!" Annabeth said. "That could mean it wasn't given by Apollo or that he ran out of rhymes."

"No I know Apollo better than anyone else at this camp, and my uncle never runs out of rhymes. Believe me if he had I would know by now. Have you ever heard his limericks?" I started.

"We get the point, let's just go pack." Grace said, laying a hand on my shoulder and causing me to jump and yelp.

"Would you not do that?" I asked.

"Do what?" She asked.

"You know sneak up on me!" I said.

She blushed. "Sorry."

"It's okay, just don't do it." I sighed. We headed back to our cabin and started to pack.

I stuck a sleeping bag, pillow, tooth brush two spare hunting tunics and a dog whistle in my back pack. Thank the gods they're enchanted. Then as an afterthought I opened my drawer and gabbed the box out. I stuck it in the back pack and we assembled for dinner.

It had only been about twenty minutes and news of our quest and prophecy had spread like wild fire. Will Solace told me good luck and about a dozen campers came over to the hunters table wishing us luck, and much to Grace's disgust Nico wished us luck.

We assembled at Thalia's pine, I left Emily in charge with specific orders to tell Thalia where I went and not what I was doing, we didn't even know that. Argus decided that since I could drive just to let us take the van. As I climbed in the driver's seat Grace raised an eyebrow.

"_You_ are going to _drive_?" She said skeptically.

"Yes, Apollo taught me how to drive." I said. Putting the keys in the ignition and buckling my seat belt.

"When?" She asked.

"When I was like eleven." I answered. "Now buckle up or I'm not going anywhere." She buckled her seat belt. I turned around, Percy and Annabeth were snuggled up together, they were buckled and Lilly was gazing out the window also buckled. Good. I drove away from camp, Grace put in a CD she had brought with her. I turned to her. "Really? Irish music?"

"You be quite, it's better than the stuff you listen too!" She scolded.

"Hey, don't insult the lyre, I know it's pretty bad at first, but it grows on you!" I said.

"Here then try this one," She pulled out a different CD labeled. _Shamrock's Lullaby_ "Apollo gave me this, he said it calmed you down and that there were fifteen different versions on here." She skipped a head to the fifth track.

"He did a Celtic version?" I asked.

"Yes he also did a Middle Eastern one but that's pretty bad." She wrinkled her nose. Lilly coughed, Grace turned and grimaced.

"What?" I asked not taking my eyes off the road; I glanced once in the rearview mirror. "Oh really? Annabeth would it kill you two to wait to make out or something."

"Why?" Percy asked.

"Um we're all hunters." I said.

"Oh yeah, sorry." They blushed and sat separately

"Thank you." Grace and Lilly said.

Soon it was getting dark, we had reached Ohio and decided to stay in a hotel for the night, we stayed in the dingiest hotel seven that was possible. Grace, Lilly and Annabeth scowled when they saw the room, two beds, a couch and a television. We didn't look at the bathroom and when we did we decided that it would be best to not shower.

Grace and I pulled out sleeping bags, Lilly hesitated but grabbed hers. Percy climbed in one bed and Annabeth in the other. Based on the look Grace had on her face as we lay down she was not too happy with the sleeping arrangements.

Soon everyone was asleep, Grace and I were in our sleeping bags in between the couch and the bed, a comfortable spot for one but nearly invading for two, Lilly was on the couch and Percy and Annabeth on the beds.

In the morning I woke to Grace brushing her hair, I didn't tell her I was awake because I love to watch her brush her hair, call me what you may, but I might have a slight obsession with her hair. She turned around and raised her eyebrows.

"What are you doing?" She asked.

"Oh, um nothing." I said, I could tell she didn't believe me but oh well. We checked out and went to the parking lot. It was empty. "I could have sworn I parked here last night."

"You did." Grace said.

I frowned. "Then where's our car?"

"It got stolen!" Grace rolled her eyes. "I told you to take the keys with you!"

"We're in the middle of nowhere, how was I supposed to know it would get stolen!" I yelled.

"Gee Shamrock, I don't know, maybe its common sense that would make you take the keys!" She shouted.

"Oh common sense now is it! Are you saying I lack common sense?" I questioned.

"Yes I am! You are reckless with everything!" She yelled.

"I am not!" I insisted.

"You fell of a damn _cliff_!" She screamed, and that's how I knew she was not mad she was blinded with white hot fury, because she never curses unless she's furious.

"Oh so that's my fault is it!" I yelled.

"Yes if you had listened and calmed down then things would have been fine!" She shouted.

"Would they really have been? What on earth is your problem?" I asked.

"My problem is I can't live every day of my life wondering how much longer it will be until you get us into a life or death incident, or how long it is until I lose you again!" She yelled.

"Why would you care if I died?" I yelled, maybe this was a little over the top but I was a bit angry at her right now.

_**A little mean don't you think, she –**_

"Just shut up!" I shouted to Conscious but Grace clearly thought I was talking to her.

"Fine I will and just so you now I would care if you died, because you're the person I trust the most." She snapped and stormed off.

"I'll go get her." Annabeth said.

"I'll help." Lilly said.

Percy whistled. "I don't know what you just did but the biggest mistake you can possibly make it to make a girl who can kill you in your sleep mad."

"Be quite Percy!" I snapped and sat on the curb.

_**Couldn't you be a bit nicer?**_

_Oh be quite._

_**Maybe you can make him see reason Wild.**_

_Shamrock, she cares about you. A lot more than you think._

_She's so-o aggravating though._

_No offence but you aren't the easiest person to live with either. _

_Yeah, you're right, but neither is she_

_She knows that. I know that. You know that, but you could be a bit more docile_

_Yeah because she was so docile_

_Don't get sarcastic with me!_

"Shamrock." Percy snapped his fingers in front of my face. "Shamrock. Shamrock!"

"What!" I snapped.

"I found a car." He pointed to a silver _Girl Scouts of America_ van.

"Are we really going to steal from the Girl Scouts?" I raised my eyebrows. "Yes, yes we are."

"You just answered our own question." Percy pointed out.

"So? Look Percy just go get the girls please." I rubbed my temple. Percy nodded and ran around the corner.

The day was warm and there was a slight breeze blowing. The parking lot was empty except for that Girl Scout Van, the cement was old and full of pot holes, the white lines faded and in daylight the Motel 7 looked even worse than it had last night. Which is saying something.

The paint was chipped and the L in the sign had fallen off and hung limply under it. The sign no longer lit up and last night I had nearly run into it. The door didn't close, and inside dust had gathered on the bench in the lobby, half the time the guy wasn't even behind the desk and there was an odd smell under one of the beds that we hadn't been brave enough to check out.

It took a long time for Percy to get the girls and when they did come back Grace glared at me like the huntress of Artemis she was. I sighed and climbed in the driver's seat, there were three seats up front, three in the back and boxes of cookies in the trunk. Lilly climbed into the middle seat next to me and Grace sat on the other side of her. Behind me Percy had stretched out and looked like he was about to take a nap.

"Percy, Annabeth has to sit down." I told him as I bent down to hot wire the car, as I had done many times with Apollo's. I got the car started, Annabeth climbed in and finally I could drive away. "Let's hope we didn't steal from the Daisy's"

Lilly bent down and grabbed something. "Daisy troop 62." She showed me the badge. "Only you would steal from five year olds."

"Of course I did, just one more thing on my list of things to balance out." I muttered.

"What's on there so far?" Grace asked.

"Well the time we stole clothes from your mom, the time I stole clothes in the 1700's and this." I frowned.

"Wow." She muttered "So falling off a cliff, killing four people, and setting Ellis Island on fire aren't on there?"

"Those are on the list of things I know will never be balanced out." I frowned. "I don't like to steal though but it always seems to come down to that, in fact I pride myself on being a pretty truthful guy, most of the time."

I could see the tension between me and Grace, tension that seemed to thicken as time went on. How is it that yesterday we were so comfortable now were aren't? No that's not it, the tensions been there for months we just kept burying it. The question is when did it start? Probably when we were on the island, after the kissing post incident, that's when it had started. Poor Lilly, we had stuck her in the middle of it all. Literaly.

Lilly seemed fine she had her nose buried in a book but I knew the tension would start taking a toll on her, if not now soon. This time driving was uncomfortable and silent. At least it was until we pulled into Indianapolis, we stopped and Percy called his mom. From there things got bad fast.

"Hey." Percy said. "I have to go home. My mom's sick and Paul wants to take her to the hospital but can't leave Natalie and our neighbors are gone."

"Okay then, this is all part of the prophecy. Go home and take care of your sister and mom." I said. He nodded and blew a dog whistle. Mrs. O'Leary bounded up.

"Thanks, bye Annabeth , I love you." He leaned over and kissed her, and was off. We turned around and the cops were inspecting out van.

"Walk away slowly, then they won't think it was us." I muttered, we turned and walked away. Only problem now was we needed to find a ride that wasn't stolen. We walked into a coffee shop and got four coffees I handed Grace hers and before I could remember that she couldn't have coffee it was gone.

"Hi Sham." She smiled.

"Hi." I said as though I was talking to a pre-schooler

"You know something?" She muttered. "You're kind of cute and I love you."

I nearly spat my coffee all over her. I stood up. "I'm going outside." I walked out of the door and sat down around the corner. Lilly came around and nearly tripped over me. "What?"

"Oh hi. Sham are you okay?" She whispered sitting down next to me. I shook my head, I felt as if something inside me was loose and I was trying desperately to hold on to it just a little bit longer. I shook my head and wrapped my arms around myself. Something inside me burned.

I could feel something going insane, going wild. The last thing I needed another attack on my core.

Lilly put a hand on my shoulder. "Shamrock, I'm not perfect, I'll annoy you, I'll tick you off, I'll say stupid things and take them back but put all of those things aside and you won't find anyone who cares about you more than I do, I'm your sister. You can tell me anything."

I looked up at her and decided I should tell her the truth. "I'm scared." She sat down next to me and put an arm around me.

"It's okay to be scared some times, we all are. Remember what Grace says on caffeine isn't always true." Lilly whispered.

"It was though Lilly; if you saw the look in her eyes then you would know just how true it was. It's terrifying."

Lilly

The poor guys eyes were the size of the moon, he was shaking violently like he was about to throw up it wasn't a good sight. I just wanted him to stop, he was my twin brother I just wanted him to be okay. I could hear Annabeth and Grace coming around the corner.

I looked up at them and motioned for them to go away, he needed his time, and someone who understood what was wrong. Annabeth nodded and led Grace into a nearby book shop. The caffeine had clearly worn off and Grace was wondering what she had done, though I was sure she could tell it was something extreme, and she obviously felt terrible about it. I could only hope Annabeth would explain it to the best of her ability.

Shamrock and I sat there for a little while longer, we probably looked pretty sad, like homeless kids or something. Not one person stopped to make sure the two kids huddled on the street, on close to tears were okay. Soon Shamrock calmed down and we walked to the bookstore. I saw Annabeth and Grace in the back, Annabeth was talking to her, explaining perhaps.

Grace's face was as red as her hair and she looked like she was going to die of embarrassment any second. We headed through the crowded rows of bookshelves and displays. The small bookstore would have really have been quite a quaint place to be if Grace and Shamrock hadn't been in this situation. Seriously was my brother really _this_ clueless about girls? He had lived with twenty of them for the last four (well really three unless you count the cliff incident) months.

Shamrock

I whimpered as Lilly drug me to the back of the bookshop where Grace and Annabeth were talking. I'm sure I looked like a five year old being drug off to somewhere I didn't want to be. Before we got to where they were waiting Lilly turned around suddenly, her auburn curls whacking me in the face.

"Ow." I said spitting strands of her hair out of my mouth, her shampoo may have smelled like strawberries but that's not how it tasted.

"Sorry." She didn't sound very sorry. "Look Shamrock, try to be nice, it's not her fault she said what she did." She begged.

"I know but-"She cut me off.

"No buts! Girls are sensitive to anything guys they like say." She said and stalked off leaving me with no choice but to follow her.

If I'd had a choice I would have run out of the building as fast as the hunter speed would carry me but I had a feeling that if I did that I would be followed and caught quickly.

_**Run! Get away from here! We can't handle it much longer. **_

_I can't, help me!_

_**You see now you need my help! I don't know how much longer your core being can handle this, and it will affect others around you!**_

I knew I had to ignore the instinct that told me to run (Which is actually what got me to meet up with Grace in the first place) I went up to Grace and looked at her, she looked back at me. We stood like that for a few more minutes before she hugged me. A silent 'I'm sorry.' I hugged her back, my silent 'it's fine'. Then everything was okay, it all would be.

"Let's go get a bus." I said, the others nodded and we walked out of the bookshop. The bus terminal for greyhound buses was dirty. The benches were covered in gum and cigarette marks. The signs hung limply from their wires. The buses looked clean enough, but that was the outside not the inside. We had to wait for our bus to arrive for half an hour.

Lilly climbed on and sat next to Annabeth, leaving me to sit with Grace, not that I minded. The seats were made of purple leather and had nets on the back of them so you could put things in them. It wasn't the nicest place to sit but it was better than driving a stolen Girl Scout van. We had bought tickets to St. Louis and we were going to take a train from there.

Grace remained rigid, and tense, ready to run if the time came. About an hour into the ride I noticed her relaxing, unlike me she was falling asleep, I was trying my hardest not to bother her but it wasn't easy, I felt like the ADHD was going to lose its mind if I didn't do something.

I let my mind wander to the box in my back pack. I wanted to open it, but something inside of me told me to wait until the quest was over and then open it. Like if I opened it now the whole quest would unravel. It be honest it was the light coming from the box that really freaked me out, it was sea green as though there were several light bulbs lit on the inside, and they were reflecting off of something, but that wasn't possible. The box wasn't big, only nine inches length, and six inches width. What could fit in there that was glowing?

_Dreaming. _

_I was in a hospital room; Apollo had his back to me and was dealing with something that had clearly been wrapped in a blanket at one point. I highly doubted that it was his own child, he wouldn't care that much if it was. He turned, oblivious to the fact that I was in the room. He was indeed holding a child, with a tuft of fuzzy black hair, skin as pale as the moon, its eyes were closed and it slept soundly. He was talking in to the child. _

_ "Yeah, little Aikatrina, its fine, your mommy will be home soon." Apollo cooed the infants face twitched into a scowl. "You're just like your brother. I promise you'll be fine by the solstice." Apollo was worried about something as though maybe the child was sick. _

_ I felt a pang of worry for the kid. She, I assumed it was a girl and with a name like Aikatrina I would hope it was a girl, wasn't more than six days old at most. If she was sick I wondered what it was, slowly at first a faint green glow started around the child. Her eyes flew open and she started screaming a terrible heart shattering scream. Apollo grabbed something off the table, a bottle filled with a green liquid, like Orion's essence had been. The little girl didn't look hungry she looked like she was in pain. A lot of pain. _

_ I wanted to scream at Apollo to take her to see a doctor, or to do something. He was a doctor he should fix it! _

_ Surprisingly though the baby took the bottle and the light subsided. It was weird. The dream faded to black and I slipped into an uneasy sleep._

The Underworld

The hooded figure was watching the Artemis loom moving slowly, the clothes of the older two now long, and you could see where a rough patch was coming up, the older two's lives had been inter twined for a while but once the beginnings of the next cloth joined he could see Chaos. Especially for the boy, Shamrock.

Shamrock had been the intended one. Give Artemis a child she hates, a child she could never love, a child who hates his very existence. That plan had become momentarily foiled when Artemis found she could love the child.

Lilly had been nothing but a mistake, he ought to have guessed that when you have the goddess of fertility you're bound to get more than one, but that was okay things had tied in perfectly. Still those two were still too perfect for his liking, they may have had hard childhoods but they weren't dying.

That was where the third cloth tied in, the cloth of the dying child. A child who was doomed to die, even Apollo couldn't stop that. All the figure had to do was remove one thread and the child was doomed. That was perfect. Artemis couldn't stand it when children died. This was perfection, he could finally cause her more pain then she had caused him, and he could cause that fool Orion pain too.

Orion, how he detested that name, if he had his way it would have been Orion that had been killed on sight. Not him, but no. Artemis had loved Orion, he was a decent male and all too perfect for Artemis for the figures taste. Orion would have been a good father, too bad she had killed him, they could have gotten married and had their own kids but her virgin oath kept her from doing that.

The figures thoughts were interrupted by Sean O'Donally running into the room. He was painting and sweating. He stopped to catch his breath and looked at the figure.

"It's all in place we just need, Shamrock, Lilly, Annabeth and- and Grace to arrive and the plan will work perfectly." He panted.

Under his hood the figure smiled demonically. "Good, good now tell me, what is Shamrocks biggest weakness?"

"His mother." Sean said. The figure nodded.

What the figure hadn't known was the Sean had lied to him, Shamrocks biggest weakness was Grace, but he couldn't let anything else happen to his sister, she had been through too much. It was better to put an immortal through what they had planned...

* * *

**I'm back! I can't really dedicate this to anyone at the moment. Anyway I am at my grandparents house and decided that I would publish this. Because there is nothing else to do around here. Updates will be on Wednesdays and regularly. **

**Guess what? America is weird! The food makes me sick too, but that's kind of always whats happened. I haven't made a small child cry in weeks, that happened In Korea because I'm blonde! Anyway I'll shut up now...  
**


	2. Arches and Scorpions

**OH MY GODS! I am so sorry I am a day late. I couldn't update yesterday because I was gone. I honestly can't say the next update will be on time as I don't have internet in my house yet. That's bo excuse though I promise I will attempt to keep on top of things. **

**I guess I'll dedicate this to James my friend I met in Korea, thanks for inspiring me James. :)  
**

* * *

Two

_Secret of the Silver Bow fun fact 2: Grace's name was going to be Dawn but I couldn't find an Irish word meaning Dawn so to make everything fit with the plot I needed the Irish word, so I changed her name to Grace._

Arches and Scorpions

Key – _The Wild_

**_The Conscious_**

**_The Instinct_**

_Shamrock_

Shamrock

I woke with a start, Grace was asleep, her head on my shoulder. That was what woke me up, I breathed a sigh of relief and thought about waking her, but that would be rude. I rested my head on the top of hers, Lilly and Annabeth made 'Awwwwww' faces from across the aisle. I motioned for them to stop it. Lilly rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"It's cute." Lilly whispered.

"No it's not, it's uncomfortable." I pouted.

"Well we, only have a half an hour, I suggest waking her up." Lilly motioned to Grace.

I reached over and tapped her shoulder, she opened her eyes. "Morning, come on we're nearly there." It was a little gruff and I was a bit grumpy.

"Someone's grumpy." Grace muttered rubbing her eyes. "Did you miss your nap?"

"No he slept for like, four hours." Lilly said. I rolled my eyes as the bus pulled into the station.

"Can we go to the arch?" Annabeth asked.

I frowned. "Percy said you've already been to the arch."

"Yeah and he fell off of it. There was a lion and an old lady, long story short I didn't get to see much of the actual arch." Annabeth protested.

"Annabeth I don't care what you do but I am getting something to eat." I said.

"I second the food motion." Grace nodded, my stomach growled.

"Okay then Lilly and I will go to the arch and you two can eat, we'll meet below the arch at four, bye!" Annabeth practically flew off the bus, Lilly being pulled after her and speeds which shouldn't be possible for a normal mortal.

Grace leaned over. "She knows we're five miles from the arch right?"

I shrugged. "I don't know it's Annabeth she'll get there if it kills her." I grabbed my pack back and got off the bus. Grace trailed a bit behind me at first, but once we were out of the bus stop she walked forward and grabbed my hand.

"It's a big city; I don't want to get separated." She said and drug me off. We found a taxi and rode to the arch.

"What are we going to eat?" I asked.

"They have hot dog stands." She suggested. Fifteen minutes later we were sitting on a bench easing hot dogs. When I was done I reached over and started to braid Grace's hair. "What are you doing?"  
"Braiding your hair." I answered.

"Why?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Because I like too."I smiled.

"Gods Shamrock, obsessive much?" She asked.

"It's pretty." I said.

She scowled and became very quiet. We still had a half an hour until Annabeth and Lilly arrived. It was the most awkward half an hour of my life, Grace and I didn't speak, we hardly looked at each other and we sat on opposite sides of the bench.

As soon as Annabeth and Lilly set eyes on us they knew something was wrong, they didn't say anything though. They just motioned for us to follow them

We stole another car and drove for an hour in silence. Annabeth insisted that she could drive and made me and Grace move to the back of the car for a while. It was a small car and Grace sat next to me and put her head on my shoulder.

After about three hours of the same scenery (Field after field of nothingness) I started to fall asleep, I only slept about an hour before I heard screaming. I sat up and found that our engine was smoking, and there was a green bomb tapped to the front.

I frowned "May I suggest we get out of the car?"

"No," Lilly's voice dripped with sarcasm. "We should all just stay here and die."

"Don't use sarcasm with me that's my thing." I argued.

"Just get out of the car!" Annabeth screamed and we jumped out of the car which exploded into flames of green a few seconds later.

"A Greek fire bomb, great. Just once could it be your grade A terrorist? Once in my life I don't want something ruined by immortals!" I huffed.

"Shamrock what's that?" Grace asked, pointing out over a field where the ground started shaking, and then it rose up.

A giant scorpion, fifty feet tall, it's huge legs as tall as me at the first joint, the hairs on it were as big as tree branches, it's pincers could easily crush us all if it had to it's beady black eyes were staring at us with distaste. The armor plating was so thick I doubt a sword could pierce or even dent it. I wasn't worried about that though, I was worried about the stinger, it was thick as a tree, and pointed to a needle tip, the poison dripped off of it as it looked at us.

The scorpion would have completely free 360 degree movement of that stinger; even if it couldn't see us it could still just swing its stinger and knock us into range. It was the most disgusting sight I've ever seen.

"That, Grace, is Scorpio." I muttered, I heard Annabeth whimper behind me. "I take it you don't like arachnids. Well if it makes you feel better Athena didn't create this one, it was all Apollo."

"The one that killed Orion?" Annabeth asked.

"No, that was my mom. This was created as one of the beasts Orion had to hunt to win the favor of my mother, it was actually just Apollo he was trying to impress, my mom already liked him. Apollo though gave him a set of ten monsters to hunt and kill, then-"

"Shut up. I think it noticed us." Lilly said.

"Well of course it noticed us." I said.

"No really it- Get out of the way!" Lilly yelled, I grabbed Annabeth, who was too stunned to move and pulled her out of the way. Just seconds later the stinger his where we had been I drew my bow, and looked at my sister

"Grace!" I yelled. "Take Annabeth and get out of the way, into the field!" Grace drug Annabeth into the field "Lilly we have to aim at the stinger, that's where Orion killed it.

She nodded and we took aim, before we could shoot though the scorpion swung it's stinger around, I jumped but it caught Lilly, she held on to the end of the stinger but she was dangerously close to the tip. It was up to me the tail swung around and knocked me to the ground. I raised my bow took aim and fired.

Time seemed to slow down, Scorpio froze and made and almost comical squeaking noise before dissolving into a pile of dust leaving just the stinger. Lilly hit the ground and I ran over to her.

"Are you okay?" I knelt down next to her

"No, I think I broke a rib or six." She groaned, I handed her a bottle of nectar, she drank from it and a few minutes later sat up.

"Can you walk?" I asked, she nodded and I pulled her to her feet. "Come on the others are somewhere in this wheat field.

Grace

She grabbed Annabeth's hand and raced into the wheat field. They ran deep into the field of wheat until she couldn't see the scorpion, but she could still hear the sounds of the retched creature. Once they were deep enough they stopped and sat down, Annabeth was shaking violently like she was about to throw up.

"It'll be fine; S-sham can handle it." She muttered but Grace realized she was only comforting herself. "S-sham will be okay." She sat down next to Annabeth and they waited

Shamrock

"Lilly if we're twins you can transform into a wolf too." I said.

She nodded and closed her eyes; it took her the better part of ten minutes to finally get it right. She was Carmel colored wolf, slightly smaller than I was (Which was nice because she's six inches taller than me in human form.) Her green eyes had a black marking around them and her fur was slightly wavy. I grinned at her and willed myself to go wolf next to her. She raised a wolfish eyebrow in a very human way. I rolled my eyes.

We ran into the field, I smelled the night air. The wheat, the soil, the animals in the area, Lilac and Lemon. Wait, I turned back to the area I had smelled the Lilac and ran in that direction. I found Grace closer than I had expected and I landed on her. I transformed back to human and she groaned.

"You are heavier then you look." She muttered. "Do me a favor. Get off me." She was blushing and I felt my face get hot. I rolled off of her and stood up.

"Sorry." I said, it took Lilly a few more minutes to transform back and when she did she frowned.

"That is weird." She scowled. She must have not liked the experience much because the look on her face was of distaste.

"Well the first time it is, but the second time it's not." I told her. She turned on me.

"There's not going to be a next time, I like the female deer better." She grumbled.

"Female deer?" I asked.

"Didn't you get an option? My Wild side asked if I wanted a female deer or wolf." She siad.

"No." I muttered.

"I know why." Annabeth chimed.

"Of_ course_ you do." I rolled my eyes.

"Well Artemis' sacred Animals are the Wolf and Female deer. Since Shamrock is male he would get only the wolf option, because there are something's that even the gods can't change." She said.

"I guess that makes sense." Grace said. "But now can we get out of this wheat field?" I nodded and turned back the way we came, it was dark but I could still see very well. I motioned for them to follow me, and we walked in silence. Lilly and Annabeth were trailing somewhat behind me and Grace. Grace and I walked a few feet apart and that awkwardness was there, so was her wall of silence, and distrust.

I would do anything I could to break that wall down, to tell her she was safe, that I wouldn't leave her again. She would never believe me though. She would think that I was just like her brother who said that and then died on her.

"Why don't we stop here?" I said. The others nodded, we had left our backpacks in the car which was on fire and surrounded my police cars so those were gone. We ended up just sleeping on the ground using our jackets as pillows or blankets. Grace curled up next to me; I could feel her breath on my neck. I couldn't sleep like that,

Her face was so close to mine, six inches away maybe, I would have moved but Lilly was on the other side of me and Annabeth was at my feet. There was nowhere for me to go, I was stuck. Grace shivered and pushed herself closer to the nearest source of heat. Me, I tensed up, this was going to be the worst night of my life no doubt about it.

I lay awake looking at the stars, Orion was gone and Scorpio was rising, in the more literal sense than one would think. Orion, he had been a nice guy, but I wasn't sure I wanted him to be with my mom, and I was starting to understand why Apollo had been so infuriated around him at first. If he cared for my mom though that was great, maybe I could have grown in like him but right now I didn't. I hadn't even spent that much time with the guy, and when I had he had tried to talk to me about Grace. Yeah, okay it was my mom's idea but he still did it, and that wasn't the kind of topic I would talk with him about. He wasn't my father, he never would be.

I wondered if he was jealous that she had kids with some other guy. Probably not, he didn't seem like that kind of guy. He was probably angry that our father was some jerk who wouldn't raise us. It's not like we're babies though, my mom doesn't have to get up at all hours of the night to feed and change us. Lilly and I are pretty good kids, but I think my mom regrets not being there when we were reaching milestones, like our first word (Mine had been 'no') our first steps (I was nine months old) and the little things like that.

To be honest if my mom could have another child I think she would do so in a heartbeat. It kind of hurts to think that we won't have that birth bond but she loved me and Lilly. That was enough.

Grace shifted resting her head on my chest I gently lifted her off, she seemed a little uncomfortable but I took off my jacket and tucked it under her head, at least I was no longer her pillow. She was however still uncomfortably close to me.

I watched the moon come high in the sky; this told me it was about ten o'clock in the evening. Still too early for me to fall asleep if I got to sleep at all it would be uncomfortable, late and I would drift in and out of it as I did most nights. Sleep insomnia is the worst thing I could ever ask for, especially now that the night was so short, I loved to sleep but with shorter nights and longer days the time I actually spent sleeping was maybe four-six hours a night.

I would have been more comfortable in a forest, this kind of place was, more Demeter style then me style. The wheat seemed to whisper in the cool night breeze millions of stars shown way out here; it was comforting to see the familiar constellations in the dark night sky. Normally I found the dark and the night to be somewhat comforting but this one had a tint of evil to it. Like something bad was coming and I didn't know what. I shook it off, rolled so I had my back to Grace and tried to sleep. It was after midnight when I finally found peace.

_This time I was clearly in a nursery. My old nursery, the faded silvery blue crib sat in one corner, the blue curtains fluttered in the breeze, the nursery was dark except for a soft ray of moonlight that fell on the baby in the crib. The infant slept contently, it's small face occasionally scowling. Its blue onesie was plain and simple, the sheets were blue and a blanket lay at the end of the crib. The baby woke and started to cry. _

_Apollo ran in, his hair messy, his shirt missing and bags under his eyes. He looked like he had in the pictures from when I was born. He pulled the screaming infant from the crib_

_"Sham, calm down." He whispered to the baby it was me. "You want your mommy don't you? Yeah, you want her to feed you instead of Apollo." Apollo moved to make a bottle. He stuck it in the infants mouth and the baby started to suckle. "I'm sorry, you don't belong here, I'm so sorry." Apollo had tears in his eyes. I realized he wasn't talking about me belonging with him; he was talking about me belonging in the world. The baby calmed and the dream faded slowly away._

I woke to the early morning sunlight and Annabeth bending over me. I sat up and looked around, Grace was awake, her red hair messy, her tunic grubby and over all she didn't look her best. Neither did I, I was covered in dirt, grime and scorpion dust. Annabeth's hair looked like she'd slept in a wheat field; her camp T-shirt and jeans were covered in dirt and grime. Lilly was the cleanest of us, she looked comfortable and freshly washed.

"Where did you get so clean?" Annabeth asked.

"There's a forest in fifty feet, and if you go about a hundred yards in to the forest there is a river." Lilly said.

"When did you find that?" I asked.

"About twenty minutes ago." She rolled her eyes and stood up. We followed her and found the river. Grace looked ready just to jump in fully clothed.

"Okay, fine, Ladies first." I turned and scaled a tree, where I could watch out for things, but not get scarred by seeing the girls bathing.

I sat in my tree and sighed, would it kill the sun to be a little less… bright? I hate the spring, well let me rephrase that. I like the weather but I hate how short the night is, because the as soon as the sun comes up you can bet that I'm going to be up and I hate that. I am a night owl. I love that, but I also love to sleep, which is frustration enough because I fall asleep a couple of hours before dawn. Being up with the sun is one of my many flaws.

Girls I guess would be the other, I am awful with girls. Why can't I take a bath with the door open? Why can't I come into the tent while they change? I mean I know were _different_ but Apollo never cared about changing in front of anyone and once you've been exposed to that you've seen it all.

"Sham! You can bathe now!" Grace yelled from the base of the tree. I hopped down and looked her over, her tunic was still somewhat dirty but her body was clean, I grabbed her hair and sniffed it, the light scent of Lilac was still there but I made a mental note to restock on her shampoo, hers had been blown up in the car. "What are you doing?" She asked.

"Nothing, absolutely nothing at all." I said, and turned and walked off. I waited until they had climbed a tree until I undressed.

The water was cold, when I say that I mean it. I thought my toes would fall off I washed as quickly as possible and got my clothes on even faster.

"Okay I'm dressed." I said. The others hopped out of the tree, well Lilly and Grace hopped Annabeth climbed. "We have to go that way for about five miles and we'll meet a town. I think." I pointed left, the girls nodded and Grace took up the lead, Lilly and I in the back and Annabeth in the middle.

"Are you okay?" Lilly asked.

"Um, yeah." I lied.

"Shamrock, I know you're not okay." She argued.

"Okay fine. Promise you won't laugh?" She nodded and I gave in. "Am I scrawny?" She repressed a laugh. "See your laughing."

"No I'm not." She said still trying not to laugh I scowled and turned away. "Hey wait." She grabbed my shoulders and made me look at her.

"What." I growled.

"1) I think it's kind of cute that you worry over this because you want to impress Grace." She siad.

"I don't-"I started.

"Yes you do now shut up and let me finish." She interjected. "2) Shamrock, I'm not perfect, I'll annoy you, I'll tick you off, I'll say stupid things and take them back but put all of those things aside and you won't find anyone who cares about you more than I do, I'm your sister."

I smiled a bit. "Thanks Lilly."

"3) You aren't scrawny but you completely lack, chest hair, and any noticeable muscle, but you're strong. You are, but you're also ah, scrawny but in a good way." She said.

"Um thanks, I think…" I said.

"You're welcome now come on; let's catch up with the group." She smiled and we ran to catch up.

Lilly

Oh that poor boy. He was so worried about impressing Grace; it was so sad that it wasn't even funny anymore. Okay so it was still a little funny but I worried about him. I know how guilty he felt for falling off the cliff, even though it wasn't his fault. I had woken up more than once to Grace staring at him from the flap of our tent, like she was afraid he would disappear again.

I looked at Grace and Sham, they were talking now and both seemed to be enjoying the others company. I was wary of this because it's like getting two female pit bulls in the same cage; they will be best friends one moment and at each other's throats the next. Really last week we found them wrestling in the grass, Sham had Grace pinned down and Grace was just about to flip them when I came in. Apparently they had been wrestling over tent cleanliness. Grace, though she had a disadvantage because she was at least ten pounds lighter than Shamrock, grew up in a house where she had to fight her brothers. Shamrock lived with Apollo, they both had short fuses and once they were set off that was it and all Hades broke loose.

Annabeth strode up to me. "Hey. Are they normally like this?" I looked at them and they were now bickering.

"Yeah, one minute they're best friends and the next they're fighting." I said. "It gets tiring constantly breaking up fight. I guess it's mostly just pent up emotion that turns to anger."

"It makes sense, since neither one knows how to express certain emotions towards the other it turns into anger aimed at the other." Annabeth nodded.

"Yeah." I said. "That…" Shamrock came back to where we were scowling at me.

Shamrock

I think I had a right to be angry. Grace was being the annoying red head again. I was sick of it, and to be honest I don't know what we were even fighting about any more. It had started out all cheery then in about five seconds flat it turned into this.

I scowled, Lilly mover up to where Grace was and I was left with Annabeth who was studying me carefully. I looked at her. "What?"

"Nothing. Nothing." She said, clearly she was still studying me, which just annoyed me so I moved a few feet away from her. I didn't need to be studied, I wasn't an animal.

_You're in a bad mood._

_Oh, you noticed. _

**_She's right you know._**

_Thank you_

_I know I'm in a bad mood, I'm just stressed out. Really stressed out. _

_Because of Grace?_

_No!_

_Then what is it?_

_Um, my… foot hurts?_

_No it doesn't. You don't know how to deal with the emotions you're feeling, so, you're stressing out about it. _

_Whatever._

"Sham!" Annabeth grabbed the back of my shirt, I blinked. Why was there a wall here? Oh crap. I did it again. "What are you doing?"

"I was having a conversation with the voices in my head!" I snapped. Grace came over and reached for my hand, she squeezed it supportively.

"Come on, let's get a car." She whispered. I nodded, and fallowed her to the parking lot, we knew we would have to steal one; I picked a fairly normal one, that appeared to have enough gas left in it. Grace climbed in the passenger seat and looked at me. "Let's not get this one destroyed."

"Right, we'll try." I said.

"Sham maybe we should pick a different one, they have a baby." Lily said. I reached in the back and grabbed the car seat. I set it next to the car and drove off.

"See now they can keep the car seat." I said. Grace sighed and pulled out of a map. "We're in Clementine, Missouri."

"How did you know that?" She asked.

"Well we just passed a sign for it." I said.

"Oh, anyway we need to head west towards Kansas City, But don't actually go through the city that always seems to cause us trouble." Grace said. I nodded and got on the highway toward Kansas City.

We drove, and drove and drove. As it turns out going around the city was easy, we just fallowed the signs to Leavenworth. That was when we got lost. We found the base and there was a group of four kids, seemingly all siblings standing outside of the base, the oldest was maybe fourteen and the youngest maybe five.

"Um excuse me." I called the oldest boy looked up. "What's your name?"

"Gabe." He looked at his sister.

"Well then, Gabe, where's the nearest highway?" I asked.

"Um, just go straight, you'll run into it." He pointed.

"Thank you." I nodded and drove away.

"Shamrock?" Grace asked.

"Yes." I smiled.

"You freaked him out. Why would you ask a fourteen year old where the nearest highway was?" The way she was saying this made me think it was another one of those little social things.

"Well he clearly lives here and his mom was coming off the base." I said.

"Shamrock, Shamrock, Shamrock." She shook her head. "There is so much you don't get socially. So much."

I didn't get what she meant, so I just shrugged it off it was probably nothing important anyway. Grace seemed to think that all these little social things that I lack are a huge deal but they're not! I know to announce myself before I come into her tent, now.

"Where too?" I asked.

"Um I would find the nearest town, which," Annabeth pulled out a map. "Ought to be Topeka." I got on the highway and started to drive towards Topeka.

The drive was long and let's put it this way, once you've seen part of Kansas you've seen _all_ of Kansas. I would have happily gone around Kansas, but I couldn't that would take too long.

"Why didn't we just take a plane?" Grace asked.

"Well we had Percy at first, and my mom and Zeus aren't exactly on great terms right now and that may have something to do with me, but I'm not taking my chances." I said. "At least not with all of you here to."

"My brother, the careful one." Lilly grumbled.

"Oh I'm sorry for being, careful with my sister." I rolled my eyes and looked over at Grace. "So Grace did you sleep well?"

"Why do you ask?" She yawned.

"You just look really tired. That's all." I shrugged.

"Um, not really, I was up all night but other than that I'm fine." She yawned again.

"Get some sleep, we have an hour or so." I said. Grace nodded and leaned against the window, soon she was sleeping, and Lilly leaned forward.

"Good now I can change the radio." She switched the station to the news and I raised my eyebrows. "I want to find out if our scorpion incident made the morning news, and what the mortals saw."  
Apparently a mortal farmer had been out for a walk and had seen two kids attacking a monster truck and its driver before running into the corn field. More of the mortals had reported seeing us steal cars, so we were now fugitives. Gods what was mom going to say? I guess it's not the wildest thing I've done these last few months, time traveling definitely topped my list of crazy things I'd done.

"Well it's not the first time I've been a fugitive, when Percy and I were twelve we were national fugitives. Percy was the fugitive I was the comrade." Annabeth said.

"Yeah but I've nearly changed the course of the revolutionary war." I pointed out she winced.

"Okay that is worse; do you have any idea what you could have done to our country?" Annabeth said, I looked at my feet instinctively for my bag.

"Damn." I cursed

"What?" Annabeth asked obviously a little concerned, the car pulled to halt.

"We're out of gas, and my bag was in the car that exploded." I said. That meant the box was in the car too, which meant it was gone.

It might seem crazy but I had the feeling that box held some kind of a clue. A clue about my father. My mother hadn't told me who he was but clearly both she and Apollo knew who he was and neither of them were sharing the information. If my mom wasn't telling me I knew it probably meant he was a pretty bad guy or it was something along those lines.

"Sham, I think that us being out of Gas is worse than your bag being blown up." Lilly said.

"You don't understand I had a box in there, one that mom gave me, I never opened it but I think it contained a clue to who dad was." I sighed.

"Shamrock." Lilly's voice was little more then I whisper now. "I opened mine and all it contained was a hair clip, very beautiful and old but just a hair pin."

"No! That's not right this was important and now it's gone." I lay my head against the steeiring wheel, and Grace, who must have woken up when we were talking, put an arm around me.

"Now ain't this sweet?" A gruff and mean voice said, I looked up and I filled with a bubbling hatred.

"Ares." I growled.

"Yeah you little punk! The lady wants to talk to you and the red head!" He snarled, "Oh and I got something for ya!" He threw our bags in to the window, I opened mine and there was the box. "You're welcome; I had to go into the fire for that!"

"Thank you lord Ares." I said, and Grace and I climbed out of the car and saw a limousine pulled up next to us. We climbed in and there putting on make-up was Lady Aphrodite.

"Hey sugarplum." She said noticing us as we sat down.

* * *

**Okay I will try to get this up on time next time. Sorry!**

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"Well can't you tell hun?" She frowned. "I'm here to help!"

"Um no offence L-lady Aphrodite b-but the last time you help S-shamrock fell off a c-cliff." Grace was shaking and I realized with a start that she was afraid of her.

"Well that was just a flaw dear, I'm really here to talk to you, and I just need Shamy here to listen." Aphrodite gushed. I scowled; I didn't really like the nick name she'd given me. Shamy? Really, Grace and my friends can call my Sham, but Shamy is a huge no, no!

"I-I won't talk to you." Grace set her jaw and tried to not to let her voice quaver, and I'll admit I was a little scared myself. Its natural this was my mom's natural enemy, and that instantly made her my natural enemy too.

"Oh honey, I see you're still in the stage I call 'Denial'" Aphrodite clucked her tongue. "Don't worry about it though we'll soon get you moved past that."

"So do I get a part in this conversation?" I asked.

"Grace Honey, come on, please?" Aphrodite begged. She shook her head, Aphrodite sighed in defeat, but I knew she would never give up. "Oh well then, you can go. But it will all come out in good time." We climbed out of the car; Ares gave one final sneer and drove away.

I looked into my bag and grabbed the box; I set it on the ground and opened it. Inside was a belt, of brown leather and three beautiful, sea green, quartz stones were inlayed in it. "This is it? I said a belt?" I won't deny that I was slightly hurt, I thought that I would find some kind of clue as to who my father was but no, all I got was this belt, and exact replica of the one Orion had been wearing at my funeral.

"Shamrock." Annabeth breathed, "That's no ordinary belt. That's _Orion's _belt." And in that sentence it all made sense.


	3. We Find A Zebra and Weasle Cookie

**Okay here we go, this one is on time. I am actually sick so I don't have much else to do. Still now Wi-fi but Starbucks has Wi-fi.**

**This one I dedicate to really no one, merely to my imagination. :)  
**

* * *

Chapter 3

_Secret of the Silver Bow Fun Fact 3: The Idea for the third Secret of the Silver Bow changed six times before settling with TimeRiders, as a result there are six alternate drafts, all only partially finished._

Key – _The Wild_

**_The Conscious_**

**_The Instinct_**

_Shamrock_

We Find a Zebra and Weasel Cookie.

Shamrock

Orion's belt was my clue, a little obvious, but at least it didn't leave me hanging, I hate it when that happens. I tied it around my waist and saw that it was made to hold a hunting dagger and that it already had one in it.

"Why would mom give it to me?" I marveled running my fingers over the stones.

"It's like the pennywhistle." Grace said.

I frowned. "What does this have to do with a pennywhistle?"

"Well it doesn't but , it's the same concept, passing it on, in your case father to son." Grace explained.

"Oh." I said, I was too stunned to say more. Honestly I was a little angry at my mom too, why hadn't she told me? Orion certainly didn't come off as a bad guy; he had loved my mother, and had come off as easy going, nice, and tall. If he was my dad how come I have only reached four foot eleven? Lilly's at least six inches taller than me and Grace is two inches taller. How was that possible?

**_Recessive genes._**

_I was being rhetorical._

**_Sure you were…_**

"Shamrock." Grace whispered. I saw the other two had gone on a head. "When this is all over, I really need to talk to you, but it's not something I can say here and now."

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because Sham, this is important, really important and is has to be said in private." Her voice wavered and I was afraid she would start to cry, but she looked more scared then upset. It was as though she had something very frightening running through her mind.

"Grace, you trust me don't you?" I Asked.,

"Sham, this, this is something that could kill me." She whispered.

"Hey you two! Come on!" Lilly called. "There's a town in two miles!" I sighed and we moved to catch up to the,

By town she really meant, itty bitty neighborhood, with a grocery store/gas station and that was about it. It was very pathetic, but it was a place to stop. Just not one where we could steal a car. We went into the gas station and found that were just six miles from Topeka. WE got some water and began the long walk into the city.

Grace was the only one who didn't seem to mind the walking we left her alone after the glare she sent Annabeth that was a clear enough signal. She walked slightly behind us deep in thought.

Lilly came over to me, I must have been pretty quiet because she said; "Thinking about Grace?"

"No," I muttered.

"Thinking about what Hades needs?" She asked.

"Surprisingly no, but you're not great at this are you?" I looked at her, and she made me hold her gaze.

"Then you're thinking about dad." Here was where she had me, I _was_ thinking about dad but I wasn't going to let her or anyone know that.

"Let's go catch up with Annabeth." I said, leaving Lilly

I jogged to catch up with Annabeth who was reading and walking, she looked up when she heard me but went back to her book when she saw me scowl. The ground was flat and there was an unnatural amount of grass. Why didn't I go around Kansas?

**_Maybe because, the other states you could have gone through were exactly like Kansas, or they were called Texas?_**

_What did Texas ever do to you?_

**_Nothing, but the last thing you need is to be seen ANYWHERE near San Antonio._**

_Why?_

**_Nothing I'm allowed to tell you._**

By the time we got to Topeka it was dark and there was a drizzle of rain. We went into a diner and sat down in a booth, it resembled one of those kinds of diners in movies, with the wooden booths, and red tables. Our waiter came and looked at us.

"So Sham," It was a voice I recognized. "What's it going to be?"

"Lord Poseidon?" I asked.

"Sh, no the cute waitress over there thinks my name is William." He whispered.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Well I _was_ here to date that waitress but it seems we have bigger issues on hand." Be muttered.

"Bigger issues?" I echoed.

"Yes, look I'll bring you some burgers, and I get off at six we'll talk then." HE siad, Annabeth opened her mouth. "Yes I know well done, something about mad cow disease… gods you're so much like your mother, Sham you and Lilly probably want rare." I nodded. "Grace is the only one whose mom I don't know personally so how do you take your meat?"

"Medium." She muttered. HE nodded and left. .

"Anyone else think the gods like this state way too much?" I looked around.

"Yeah, it's weird, three in one day, they either all like Kansas or there is something weirder then we thought going on here." Grace muttered, laying her head on the table. She was tired, we all were. She was soon asleep and I had to move her head for her food. I nudged her awake.

"Grace, food." I muttered.

"Fine, I'm up." She grumbled. We ate quickly and then Poseidon led us away, he took us to the pent house of a hotel and told us we could shower and change. Grace took this to heart and showered quickly.

The bathroom alone was almost too grand to use, there were a dozen different kinds of soap and the toilet had like a dozen colorful buttons which tempted me and I found out that it sprayed water if you pressed the blinking blue one. I also found out that the Jacuzzi would spray water even if the bath wasn't full. The towels had the hotels name embroidered on them, but they made my hair way too poofy for my liking, but they were soft. I dried my hair and then used one of the six dozen different size combs to brush my hair. I scowled; my hair never went the way I wanted it to.

We didn't have anything but the camp clothes. I sighed and resided to put those on. With my auburn hair, the orange shirt and blue jeans, I looked way too much like candy for my liking. Lilly was sitting on the couch and she stifled a laugh.

"You look like a lollipop you know?" She siad. I rolled my eyes.

The room was white and gold, the bed though was blue, the couch Lilly sat on was at the foot of it and looked so expensive that I was afraid to sit down on it. The TV was flat screen with like nine different buttons, and mounted on the wall, and the dresser lined the wall below it. There was a walk in closet on the wall opposite the door. The windows were locked but would open. This hotel was an ADHD nightmare.

Grace came out of the shower in her camp clothes and wrinkled her freckled nose. "Orange is _not_ my color."

"It's the red hair." I said. "You probably also shouldn't wear pink, or red. I think blue or green would look nice though."

Grace raised her eyebrows. "Do you care to explain why you care about what my color is?"

"Apollo, I had to spend hours at his photo shoots, for various fashion industries and I learned surprisingly a lot about what certain people can wear." I explained.

"Oh Shamrock, you might want to refrain from telling people what they can wear and what they can't?" She sighed and lay down on the bed, her red hair spread out on the pillow. Before she could sleep however Poseidon came in.

"Okay we need to talk." He said. Annabeth raised her eyebrows at him. "Annabeth could you not do that? You remind me way too much of your mother when you do that, and honestly it's a little creepy."

"Why do we need to talk?" I asked.

"Okay at this point you know about both your parents and I can tell you're both a bit angry with your mom, because she didn't tell you. That anger is all focused in the wrong place. You can't blame your mother, Orion is still a difficult topic, and she would have told you in her own time." He said. Jumping into it and getting straight to the point.

"I never wanted to know anything about my family before though I was completely content not know but then this came up and now I need to know." I said.

"Did you ever ask your mother about him?" Poseidon asked.

"Only once, and then it made her so upset I thought she would cry if I asked again." I said.

"Shamrock, you are more like your mother then you know, and she would have let it all out in her own time, it's hard I know, but she has had a hard time coming to terms with… uh recent events." He rubbed the back of his head nervously.

"Yeah like having a Son." I scowled I knew it was true, there was no denying it, I was the imperfection in her life. The one thing she'd always wanted but never really wanted, she wanted a child yes, but not a boy. I

"Shamrock, she loves you." Poseidon said, it was obvious that he was trying to make me stop thinking like that. As if, I knew the truth.

"Maybe, but she wanted a girl." I said.

He shifted uncomfortably. "Look why don't you all fallow Grace's example and get some sleep." I looked at Grace who and fallen asleep wither head on my shoulder. "Look, Annabeth, you go shower, Lilly you and Sham can sleep across the hall if you want." He left and Annabeth went to shower.

"Sham, I'm going to go across the hall okay?" Lilly siad.

"Yeah sure, you do that; I'll be over in a bit." She nodded and left. I gently removed Grace's head from my shoulder and lay her down. She muttered something in her sleep and wrinkled her nose; she rolled over and seemed more comfortable. I sighed and left the room.

Lilly was already asleep on the bed so I took the couch and settled in for a good night's rest, which was interrupted (Of course) by a dream

_ Apollo rolled himself out of bed and went over to the crib in the corner the infant in side was crying feebly. He picked up a bottle from the table and fed the baby. _

_ "You are so much like your brother, but at least you sleep." Apollo said. The infant was small and obviously sick, Apollo picked up a syringe and shot the green glowing liquid into the baby, it seemed to grow healthier in front of my eyes. The baby fell asleep and Apollo looked at her sadly. "But how long do you have Aikatrina? Weeks? Months? Years?"_

_ Apollo looked so upset that I couldn't help but feel bad for him. Who was this kid? Why was she dying? One question nagged at the back of my brain more than the others; why did Apollo care? Apollo looked at the photos on his nightstand, one of Artemis, one of me when I was maybe, five and then one of Lilly. Then the dream faded. _

I woke up and Grace was curled on the floor next to the couch. I looked at her and nudged her awake. "What are you doing?"

"Oh sorry I came to wake you but you wouldn't wake up so I lay down and fell asleep again." She yawned.

"Are you sick or something?" I Asked.

"No but I am really tired, it's like five am and if we don't get going soon we won't make Albuquerque by nightfall." She muttered I sighed and rolled off the couch. She handed me a fresh tunic and I pulled off my clothes while Grace covered her eyes. I put on the new tunic and buckled Orion's belt around the waist, Grace opened her eyes and we left the room.

Lilly and Annabeth were already dressed, they handed me a waffle and some orange juice, which I drank down in two gulps. Lilly's curls were brushed and pulled back into a braid, and Annabeth had pulled her hair up into a Pony tail. Grace though had left her hair down, but her clothes remained the same. Poseidon lent us a van and we started the long, twelve hour drive to New Mexico.

About three hours in we stopped at a rest area to go to the bathroom and get some food. Grace and I were standing around waiting for our coffee (Well her tea) when Annabeth ran up to us, panting. It took her a few seconds to catch her breath.

"There are hellhounds and cobras on the toilets." She panted.

I was puzzled. "What?"

"Hellhounds, toilets, girls room." She said. "I killed three but there is one in every stall, oh yeah there's also a flying cobra."

"Run!" I heard a girl with a British accent say, then I saw her, long blonde hair flying, two people, an Arab girl and African American boy, the blonde plowed into me and the other two tripped over her.

"Ouch." I groaned.

"Sorry." She said, Grace's nose twitched like she was aggravated. The girl rolled off of me. "I'm Sadie Kane."

"Shamrock, now what were you running from?" I asked.

"A flying cobra." Sadie said.

"Sadie," The boy said. "Where's Ra?"

"Ra?" I said.

I was answered by a cry of "Zebra!" as a very old man hobbled over to where the Arab girl was, and he grinned a toothless grin at me.

"See Sham!" Annabeth said. "There was a fly cobra in the bathroom!"

"You saw that?" The girl asked, drawing a knife.

"Zia." The boy warned, the girl seemed to get it, we were being stared at. The one called Zia grabbed me and Grace's arms and drug us off, the other two trailing somewhat behind us.

"Look you are either Magicians of the House of life or something else but if you have a car we need to get to Las Vegas." She said.

"I'm actually a Demi-god. You know son of a Greek god?" I asked.

"Oh um, Zia they're not from out world." The boy whispered.

"Shut up Carter!" Zia was clearly stressed out.

"If you want," Grace perked up. "You can catch a ride with us."

"Right see Zia, we have a way to get to Las Vegas and friends." Sadie said. We lead them back to the car and they explained about them being Egyptian magicians and the House of Life. In turn we had to explain about the Greeks, and our camp.

"Um is your grandfather going to be okay Zia? He seems a bit… senile." I commented, looking in the rearview mirror as the old guy sucked on the end of a blue and yellow stripped candy cane thing.

"Oh, he's not my grandfather; he's Ra the sun god. The fate of our world kind of depends on him." Zia explained, taking the candy cane out of his mouth and handing him a teething ring.

"So basically you're saying we're doomed?" I asked.

"Um no, but if he doesn't snap out of it very soon then yes, yes we are." She said, turning around and buckling Ra in.

I looked at Grace and she loo ked at me. She mouthed 'I'm worried about them.' I nodded.

"Actually," Zia said. "Just get us to Albuquerque; I can handle things from there." I nodded.

About five minutes later Zia was asleep. "She doesn't get to sleep much while watching Ra." Carter whispered. I nodded.

We drove, and drove and drove. Then it happened again the engine stuttered and stopped. Zia sat up and yawned. "We're out of Gas, again." I muttered.

"Okay everyone out." Grace ordered, we climbed out, my instincts told me we were about half way to where we needed to be.

"Then this is where we leave you, we are sorry that we cannot do more to help." Zia said, Carter whistled and a large bird like creature appeared out of nowhere. "That's our ride, goodbye." They climbed onto the animal, which flew straight up and disappeared.

"They have a griffin?" I siad skeptically."

"Why not? We have a hellhound." Annabeth shrugged. She made a valid point there; still I wondered why they would possibly need one.

I was about to suggest we move on when I noticed Grace was nowhere to be found. I looked around then I heard a shrill scream from the trees. I drew my bow and ran into the trees. Grace was lying on the ground with a hellhound on her chest, he arms were pinned and she couldn't draw her dagger or bow. Then the monster noticed me, I swear it smiled demonically and me.

Then it lunged, I kicked in in the chest which didn't seem to do anything but aggravate it more. I decided and long range weapon, like my bow, wouldn't be much help here. Instead I drew the knife from the belt. I flipped over the hellhound and landed next to Grace. It turned on me and before it realized what I was doing I drove the knife into its heart, it crumbled to dust leaving only a tooth behind. I picked the tooth up.

"Grace what on earth were you thinking?" I asked.

"Well you were talking to Zia and I heard growling so I decided to check it out." She shrugged.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?" I asked

"Yeah because the stuff you do is _so_ safe. I didn't fall of a cliff, _I_ didn't pick a fight with vampires, _I _didn't burn Ellis Island, _and I _didn't nearly drive the people who love me to the point of suicide!" She shouted.

"Oh, well at least _I _didn't cause a factory to burn and the deaths of my family." I shouted, that was too far, the anger drained out of her eyes, and her face lost color and she sat down on the forest floor. Lilly and Annabeth were standing next to me and Annabeth moved to put an arm around Grace, but Grace pushed her away.

"Leave me alone." She snarled her breathing was heavy; she pulled her knees up to her chest, buried her face in her hands and started to shake, she wrapped her arms around herself as though she was trying to hold herself together. I felt horrible, what kind of person was I?

I was also a bit scared, because I saw now that I had the power to hurt Grace, just the thought that I could destroy Grace, if I wanted to. I wouldn't, or at least I like to think I wouldn't.

"Grace, I-I'm sorry." I knelt down next to her.

"Leave me alone." She snarled.

"Okay, guys let's set up camp, we'll stay here, Lilly you and I can go hunt." I said. Lilly nodded we drew our bows and moved away silently.

After about ten minutes with nothing Lilly grabbed my hand and pulled me over to a log, we sat and I sighed.

"Sham," Lilly whispered. "You need to be more careful."

"I know, I feel terrible." I said.

"Shamrock, please I want you to be completely honest with me how does this whole thing make you feel?" She asked.

"I'm scared." I confessed. " It scares me that I can hurt her this easily, I don't want to be able to. I just want to be her friend, someone she can count on, someone she can trust, someone she can talk to, someone she can come to if she feels lonely."

Lilly sighed. "Shamrock, please. Say something to her, apologize."

"Lilly." I said. "She won't listen to me. Why would she?"

"Yes she will because words can sting but it's silence that breaks the heart." Lilly said.

"Yeah you're right, but could I wait until she cools off a bit, she seemed a bit mad at me, before I kind of destroyed her sanity that is." I rubbed the back of my head.

Lilly laughed. "Shamrock you're an idiot, she was jealous of Zia and just so you know that's another social thing we have to work on!"

"Why?" I frowned.

She heaved a sigh. "Sham, because when guys get jealous it's actually kind of cute, but when girls get jealous World War Three is about to begin."

"Oh, but why would she be jealous?" I asked.

"Because you were spending more time talking to Zia to realize that she had been trying to get a word in for like an hour." Lilly said.

"Had I been talking to her for that long?" I asked.

"No." She said. "Well not outside the care inside the car yes."

"Look I need to talk to Grace; can you get Annabeth out of camp?" I begged.

"Um Shamrock, just wait until we're asleep." She put a hand on my shoulder, looked at a rabbit sitting near the log and raised her bow. With is two seconds the animal was dead and we went back to camp.

Annabeth and Grace had a fire going and had been deep in conversation, a conversation that stopped as soon as I entered the clearing. Grace looked up at me her eyes red, Lilly held up the rabbit but it would be a long time before I was hungry again.

After dinner we rolled out the sleeping bags that Ares had packed for us. They were dark red and had a bit of an odd smell but they were better than nothing. Annabeth and Lilly fell asleep quickly but I knew Grace lay awake like I did.

"Grace can we go on a walk?" I whispered, reaching for her hand.

"Okay." She stood up and offered me her hand. I took it and we walked into the forest. "What do you need?"

"Grace, I'm sorry about what I said earlier, it's not your fault your family's dead. I shouldn't have said that, it wasn't right." I Apologized.

"Shamrock, that's where your wrong, it i-is my f-fault. I-I should b-be dead." Her voice wavered. Even though I couldn't see her very well I knew she was close to tears.

"Grace O'Donally, don't ever say that." I said, brushing her hair out of her face.

"I-it's true though." She whispered.

I shook my head and wrapped my arms around her, pulling her into a hug. "No, no it's not." Her breathing was heavy now.

After a few minutes we went back to camp, Grace climbed in her sleeping bag and I climbed in mine, I fell asleep quickly this time but only to be haunted by dreams.

_I was in some sort of cavern stalactites hanging from the ceiling, water dripping from them in a steady drip, drip, drip pattern. The cavern was lit only by a ball of fire in a basin to the side and the air was damp, like I was standing in a cold sauna. _

_ I didn't know where but there was a person in with a cloak pulled up over his head, he looked a bit imposing, the kind of guy you didn't mess with. In the corner of a cabin was a small loom weaving very slowly, two cloths at once. A red haired boy ran in and knelt before the figure. _

_"My lord, she has arrived at the palace of Hades." The boy had a light Irish accent and reminded me of someone, but I couldn't put my finger on who it was. _

_"Good, good. Now we just need Hades to grant her wish and we can put the final step of my plan into place. You've served me well Sean." The figures voice was ancient, but smooth, he sounded like a god but not one I'd ever met. _

_"When shall we take her?" The boy, Sean, asked. Where had I heard that name before?_

_"Soon, soon, let them have a few weeks peace, but it will be before the solstice." The figure said. I wished I could see his face, it would give me some idea of who it was. _

_The boy stood, and I realized he looked like Grace. The same intense green eyes, the same nose that twitched when he was annoyed (As it was doing now) the same fiery hair, like someone had dropped a match on him and it has colored his hair. The same splash of freckles across his nose, he was even the same size. _

_"Yes my lord, I will return when I have more information." The boy ran out of the cavern and the dream closed. _

I woke with the feeling that I had seen something very bad and something was very wrong. I looked around, Camp had been packed up, the fire put out and some left overs on a paper plate next to my head with a note written on it.

"Dear Sham, we found a stream, and went to take a bath be back soon – Grace." I read. I ate quickly and packed up my sleeping bag and walked into the woods. I heard Grace before I saw her, she was saying something about getting dressed and going to find me so I sat down and waited.

She came out of the trees and jumped when she saw me just sitting there with my legs crossed. She put her hand on her heart.

"Gods Shamrock, don't do that!" She said. "I take it you found my note?"

"Yeah I did." I said.

"Oh well we can wait here for the others. Are you going to bathe?" She wondered, sitting down next to me.

"No." I shrugged; I didn't really see the point of bathing if I wasn't that dirty. Grace nodded, her damp wet hair smelled like Lilac. "Did Ares pack shampoo in there?" I gestured to her bag.

"Yeah, my normal kind to." She perked.

"I can tell." I said. She blushed a bit and Annabeth came running up to us.

"You two ready to go?" She asked. I nodded and stood up, pulling Grace up too. I dusted myself off and fallowed Annabeth, Lilly was waiting by the stream, we crossed it and started south. We walked for a few hours before coming to another small town.

"What is it with small towns and where ever it is we've been? They're everywhere!" I shouted.

"Are Small towns a new pet peeve?" Grace asked.

"Maybe."

"What number are we up to?" Lilly asked.

"Three hundred and four, which means that the one that we cured, the 'Dislike of any blue foods' had been counted out." Grace nodded.

"You're _counting_?" I said skeptically.

"Yes we are, because my goal is to cure you of at least half of the stupid little things you hat in my lifetime, which because I'm immortal could go on forever, literally, so please stop adding new ones to my list." Grace begged.

"Well it's not my fault if you have impossible goals, which you might as well add to the list, a 'Dislike of People Who Have Impossible Goals.'" I said.

"That makes three hundred and five." Grace moaned.

We sat down on the curb to rest for a few minutes. A little girl with her mother passed us and her mother pushed her along the road faster. Grace sighed.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"We're still a state away from Las Vegas." She said.

"You mean Utah?" I asked.

"Yeah that." She muttered.

"Well actually we need to get to Los Angeles. "I informed them. "That's where the entrance to the underworld is."

"Oh good, I don't like Las Vegas." Grace said.

"Why not?" Annabeth asked.

"Too many drunks, drug addicts, and other things I don't see fit to mention. There is no way I am gracing that place with my presence!" I insisted.

"Shamrock, your presence tends to bring mass destruction. Besides it will take a good hour longer if we don't go through Las Vegas." Annabeth said.

Lilly looked at me. "Sham as, much as I hate it she's right we have to go. I'm sorry; we can steal a car and drive through if you want."

I nodded; Grace laid her head on my shoulder and sighed.

"Are you Shamrock?" A voice from behind us said. I turned and grabbed my bow. "I'm going to take that as a definite yes."

"Who are you?"

"A friend of your mothers."

"What is your name?"

"Hippolytus."

"Why are you here?"

"I have been sent to escort you to the underworld." He smiled like an idiot.

"What do you mean to my mother?"

"Your interrogative, but if you must know I am a temple hand, or I was a temple hand, we both hated love, so you can see we have some in common. I helped her after the tragedy that was your father." The guy said.

"Why should I believe you?" I snarled.

Grace put a hand on my shoulder, breaking my concentration and causing the bow to disappear. "Sham listen to him, I've met him before."

"Ah Grace is that you it's been how long six years?" He smiled at her.

"Seven, sir, your allowed to walk the earth once every seven years." Grace said carefully.

"I know!" He snapped "that cursed Aphrodite! She did this to me!" He shook his fists at the sky. "Well it _is _more generous than what your father got." He said suddenly happy again.

"What's his problem?" I whispered to Grace, Hippolytus was now conversing happily with Lilly and Annabeth like nothing was wrong.

"Oh he's bipolar. Really bipolar, we used to think that it was something psychological. He can go days without sleep when he's in Maniac mode but in the depression mode he can be driven to the point of suicide if you say the wrong thing. Just be careful overall he's a pretty nice guy." She explained.

"Come, come, I have a car for us!" He led us to a small car, Lilly hopped in the front and I got squished between Annabeth and Grace. "How about some music!" It wasn't really a question, he just smiled at us, then pressed the play button and a Miley Cyrus CD came on.

Perfect I was stuck in a small car, between two girls, a moody maniac, with a _Miley Cyrus_ CD blasting in the background. I should have had my mom kill me in the first place.


	4. Viva Las Vegas!

**Well here we are on time once again, with chapter four. I have been up for twelve hours at this point so I am just glad I haven't fallen asleep on the keybord or forgotten yet. **

**To who ever invented alarms. I wouldn't have updated with out one because I would be asleep!  
**

* * *

Four

_Secret of the Silver Bow fun fact 4: No matter how seemingly random the fact that Shamrock has three alternate aspects is extremely important._

Key – _The Wild_

**_The Conscious_**

**_The Instinct_**

_Shamrock_

Las Vegas With A Bipolar Servant of My Mothers

Shamrock

All I have to say is how ever my mom met this guy I think she took pity on him and ended up befriending him. My mom takes pity on the weak, I didn't think this guy was weak, so much as he was gullible and his mood disorder made him difficult. He sang along to P_arty in the USA_ at least a million and six times. It drove me insane to a point where Grace noticed suggested we change the song to which Hippolytus responded by yelling at us that we didn't appreciate 'real' music. So I shut up.

I figured that I had put up with Apollo for nearly sixteen years I could put up with this for less than six hours. Or that's what I'd like to think. Instead after three hours of _Party in the USA _I was pretty close to jumping out the window. Grace saw the look on my face and gripped my hand tightly; She put on hand on my chest and pushed my down against the back of the soft seat.

"Calm down." She whispered to me, her voice stern, but calming at the same time. It told me that she had several hundred years' experience with the emotions of others.

I sighed and took to studying the interior, the seats were fabric and the car was obviously pretty old. There were three seats in the back and two up front. Lilly seemed to have taken to this guy, she was more of a people person then I was. The middle seat, where I was, was a bit higher than the other two, but that still only brought me up to the same height as Grace. The windows were rolled down and air flowed through. Which was nice, and as we passed into Flagstaff, I sighed and convinced Hippolytus to let us pull over for some coffee.

I went in with Grace and got us each a coffee. Grace discovered the beauty of a cream based Frappuccino instead of a coffee based one, the cream wouldn't make her, well loopy. Another incident like the one a couple of days ago was really the last thing I needed at that particular moment. Lilly and Annabeth went to use the bathroom and Hippolytus was sitting on the curb making shapes in the dust with his fingers. I handed him his coffee and Grace leaned over.

"That _is_ decaf right?" She whispered.

"No, why?" I frowned, no one had said anything about the need for decaf.

"Caffeine makes his mood swings worse." She sighed.

We climbed back in the car and Hippolytus seemed fine, he still sang to Miley Cyrus but Lilly had convinced him to change the song. He must have really liked my sister because he agreed as long as we kept it on the same CD.

Grace didn't look too good, beads of sweat were running down her face even though the car was perfectly cool and her t-shit was damp. She was panting and pale.

"Are you okay?" I asked. She shook her head.

"I feel like I'm going to be sick." She whispered.

"You probably just drank the coffee too fast, it was cold, and if you drink something cold too fast on a day like this you could get sick." I said.

"Oh." She whispered. It was my turn to make her lean back against me. She willingly rested her head on my shoulder. I felt her relax and stop shaking, every muscle in her body loosened. I held her to me and Lilly looked back and took a picture.

"What?" Hippolytus turned. "Aw, now isn't that sweet?"

"The road!" Annabeth yelled, he whirled back around as though he had suddenly just remembered that he was driving.

"Right, sorry!"

I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to remember that had put up with Apollo, but I was starting to think that the Miley Cyrus singing was a lot worse than the rhyming, and the constant babble was worse than the lyre, and the mood swings were worse than the constantly trying to hook me up with one of his daughters (Which never worked)

We rolled into Las Vegas at around Six pm, and I woke Grace up. She looked around and scowled, it was the most 'Shamrock' thing I had ever seen her do. I was making an impression on her I suppose.

"Can't I just sleep here, I don't like this place." She yawned, still scowling.

"Sorry Grace it's too hot for you to do that." I said. She sighed and obliged to climbing out of the car. Hippolytus drug us to some hotel called Caesars Palace there was a huge fountain in the center.

"Well we will have to go through this obstacle!" He shouted and began to wade through the fountain, his long roman style tunic only added to the attention we were receiving, his shoulder length black hair grew into his blue eyes, under which they gave the impression of a mad man.

"Um Hippolytus how about we just go around the fountain." I said, he turned and looked at me.

"Well Shamrock my boy you are quiet like your mother, very resourceful!" He smiled like an idiot, waded back to where we were (Even though at this point just continuing through the fountain would have been the shorter route) climbed out of the fountain, and marched around it.

At the check in counter the woman looked Hippolytus up and down. He was wet to his knees and smiled. "Hello." He said. "We need a room."

I tuned him out and turned around Grace was standing a few feet away and these men were staring at her, and saying mean things to her. Grace looked terrified of them, and then they touched her. No one is allowed to touch Grace, even on the shoulder like he did. Still his motives were clear, too clear.

Then all hell broke loose, I heard a noise a feral growling, animal like sound that I only later realized was coming from me. I lunged and tackled the guy to the ground.

Grace

The scariest thing she had ever seen was Shamrock get all territorial like that, his teeth elongated, his pupils turned long like an animals, his eyes changed from green to burning silver, his voice became more of a snarling sound.

He punched the man that had touched her and she was pretty sure he had just bitten him. She turned, the hotel security was surrounding them but they were all too afraid of Shamrock, he hadn't killed anyone but so far two men had been knocked out and Sham had moved to the third one.

Hippolytus came over to Grace and backed her up slowly. "He's an energetic one isn't he?"

"He's gone psychotic you idiot!" Grace screamed, Shamrock turned a wild look in his eyes but before he could move his eyes rolled back into his head and he fell, in a flash of silver light he returned to human form. She ran over, closely followed by Lilly, Annabeth and Hippolytus.

"W-we have to get him out of Las Vegas." She said, Hippolytus bent over and picked him up.

"He's still breathing, Grace go get in the back of the car I'm going to lay him down and I want you to try and get some nectar in him, Lilly you and Annabeth will have to share the front seat I'll drive." Hippolytus ordered, carrying Sham out to the car.

"He's my brother!" Lilly protested.

"Yes and if I'm not mistake he was trying to protect this girl, now being a child of Artemis the connection between this girl and him could kill him and right now if she's not the first person he sees when he wakes up he could go psycho on us again." Grace slid into the back of the car and Shamrocks limp form slid in next to her. She pulled his head on to her lap and dug around in her bag for a bottle of nectar. She held it to his mouth.

The nectar dribbled down his chin and none got into his mouth "It won't go in." Hippolytus passed back a syringe.

"Fill that with nectar and inject it into his blood." He instructed.

"How do I do that?" She asked.

"Hold out his for arm." He instructed. She did. "Now Annabeth I need you to take a Sharpie and make a dot half way to between his elbow and his wrist right in the center make a dot."

Annabeth turned around and made the mark.

"Good, now Grace I want you to inject the nectar into the vain under that dot." Grace nodded and drove the needle into the arm and pressed down.

"There now what?" She asked.

"Well now, we pull into this Motel Seven, get a room and wait." Hippolytus said. Grace felt at Shamrocks neck for a pulse.

"Hey Annabeth where should the pulse be?" Grace asked. Annabeth reached back and gasped.

"Grace, there is no pulse."

Sham

I was floating in a room of white; it seemed to go on forever, no shadows, and no light just the white. A girl, the wild, was floating next to me. I looked at her, and she looked at me.

"Aren't you supposed to be in control?" I asked.

"Aren't you?" She raised her eyebrows.

"Point made." I acknowledged.

"Do you know why you are here?" She wondered.

"No."

"Then I'll tell you. You were fighting to protect Grace because of this bond, tell me now what went through your mind when you saw those men touching her?" She asked.

"I was instantly protective; no one touches Grace like that." I said.

"You were like a wolf, protecting its mate." She siad.

"Whoa! Mate? Where did this mate stuff come from? I'm sixteen she's fourteen we are not mates we are friends and I will do anything to protect my friends." I yelled.

"You are correct you are much too young to be mates, that was an incorrect analogy." She frowned. "My point is that you feel a strong connection to her, one that might not go away, one that could possibly get you and her killed." Wild cocked her head. "Knowing you it will get the both of you killed at some point, but I can at least hope you'll make it past the solstice."

"I-I can't l-love people it's impossible." I managed. Something called my name it was faint.

"Oh but of course" She rolled her eyes. "Shamrock someone is calling we will continue this conversation later, but be warned you are not alone in this world, you are not the only child or Artemis in pain. You do have a sister and she is possibly in a worse state then you. Goodbye Shamrock, you must go now. Go take control."

Oddly enough when I woke up and was tackled by Grace my first thought wasn't _what happened?_ It was _Why is every metaphysical being I know so damn poetic?_

I looked up at Grace, she was shaking violently and her breathing was coming in short scared breaths. "What happened?" I asked her.

"You nearly died on us." She whispered and leaned down to hug me. "If you ever do that again I'll tell your mother."

"No dying, got it." I said weakly.

"Hippolytus got your heart started again but next time I want Thalia to jump start you." Grace said.

"Why?" I asked wearily.

"Hippolytus did the heart pump thing, and mouth to mouth." Grace said. I scowled and Grace gave me a watery smile and a small laugh.

"Never let him do that again." I said.

"I won't. The others will be back soon they went to get some dinner." She got off of me and I sat up.

"Remind me to watch my temper." I rubbed the back of my head.

I looked around the hotel room, there was one bed, that I occupied, a dingy brown couch that I wouldn't sleep on unless my life depended on it, the wall paper was peeling uncovering a plaster wall, and a lamp sat in a dusty corner. There were two doors, the one next to my bed I guessed went to the bathroom and the one near the couch probably led to the hall. There was shag carpet on the floor and it was lime green, I'm not kidding. Lime Green.

"Sham." Grace drug me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah?" I whispered, she was so close to me.

"Why did you do it?" She breathed.

"For you, they were touching you and you were obviously uncomfortable with that so I did what I had to do to keep you safe." I said.

"Oh. Thank you." She leaned closer to me; I could feel her breath and smell the Lilac shampoo. Then, the door banged open.

"Hello!" Hippolytus' voice rang out in the room and Grace fell backwards off the bed in surprise, landing with an undignified 'umph' on the lime green carpet below. "Ah, Shamrock you're awake!"

"Yes I am." I sighed, reaching over to pull Grace up.

"So what have you been up to?" Lilly raised her eyebrows.

"Well I just woke up and found out Hippolytus gave me mouth to mouth, does anyone have a tooth brush?" I asked.

"No, sorry." Annabeth said. I climbed out of bed and stretched, I stretched my toes and yawned, Grace giggled.

"What?" I asked.

"Oh it's just Apollo has this picture of you as a baby Sham, and you were doing the same thing in your crib. It's an adorable picture, to be honest its right up there with the picture of you sitting in the bathtub with a unicorn horn made of soap and your hair on your head, in cuteness levels." Grace said.

"You saw a picture of me when I was little in the bath!" I said.

"Shamrock, I had six little brothers, a twin brother and you were _two_." She said. "Besides it was a bubble bath I couldn't see anything."

She made a point but that didn't stop me from blushing, it was weird to think of a girl, especially Grace, having seen that picture. It was the one that I had tried to hide the most. I wondered if Grace had any baby pictures of herself.

"Do you have any pictures of yourself from before the hunt?" I Asked.

She looked at her feet "No. I only have the one of my whole family, and a couple of me and my sisters, but other than that I'm not in them at all." She said.

"Well let's stay here tonight and leave tomorrow." I said. The others nodded. Hippolytus slept in the bed, Annabeth on the couch, Lilly in front of the couch and Grace and I slept in the only unoccupied space. It was very narrow and we were stuck between the wall and the bed. Grace had absolutely no room for her sleeping bag so we unzipped mine and used it like a blanket, she was eager to keep her distance from me and slept as close to the bed as physically possible, I turned around to face her, she was watching me.

"What?" I whispered, in the moonlight her skin seemed to glow and her hair stuck out even more.

"I just don't want you to die on me." She muttered, her eyes probing me, like she was making sure I was still there.

I shifted uncomfortably under her gaze. "I won't."

"Prove it." She muttered. I sighed and avoided her eyes, they were unnerving.

"I can't prove it at least not now, but I'll make it, and if I don't I'll find a way to come back." I whispered.

"You died back there Sham, your heart stopped." She whispered.

"I'm not dead now am I? You didn't really think you would get rid of me _that_ easily did you?" I grinned.

"Oh great now I'm stuck with you aren't I?" She rolled her eyes. Grace had a sense of humor, which was good. I liked a sense of humor, it made everything so much easier than people who have none with people who have no sense of humor I can't use all my amazing sarcasm.

"Yeah you are." I joked.

Her smile disappeared. "Thanks Shamrock."

"For what?"

"Giving me something to count on." She said, suddenly her eyes grew wide.

"What?" I frowned.

"Shamrock, your eyes, they aren't green anymore." She gaped.

"What do you mean?" I wondered.

"Well when you went savage your eyes changed from green to silver, and I just realized they never went back to green." She said.

"Is this a huge deal?" I honestly didn't care what color my eyes were, though I'll admit I had gotten rather attached to their particular shade of green over the last few months. It was kind of like my trade mark, the piercing green-silver eyes.

_Don't be so dramatic!_

_Fine, fine I'll stop with the dramatics!_

"I liked your greenish-silver eyes." She frowned, then she closed her eyes, soon her breathing became even and she was asleep. This time though Grace didn't snuggle against me for warmth, I admit it I was a little disappointed.

I knew I was tired but I didn't want to sleep, eventually I gave in to my exhaustion and fell asleep. Only to have my peace interrupted by yet another conscious shaking dream

_ This time there was a faint green glow coming from the kitchen, Apollo was standing there, the baby in his arms, this time the infant was asleep. Apollo was on the phone talking in a language I didn't recognize but it certainly wasn't Greek. It seemed too new to be any dialect of Greek, it was still old though.  
He seemed worried about something; he looked down at the baby who was glowing green. I was pretty sure it wasn't natural or healthy for children to glow that shade of green. She was snoozing comfortably though. It was the first time I noticed how tiny she was. _

_ I had seen a premature infant before but this one didn't look premature, just small. She stretched and I noticed she couldn't be longer than ten to twelve inches. It was strange to see anything this tiny. Apollo hung up the phone and walked out of the kitchen, carrying both the baby and my dream with him..._

This time it was Lilly bending over me, not as quite a welcoming sight as Grace, especially considering that she had woken me for the last two months. She wasn't saying anything; her green eyes were just staring at me, which was her favorite 'Wake Shamrock up' technique. It was a little creepy but that's the point, and if I rolled over to go back to sleep she would grin demonically which sealed the deal and woke me up.

I sighed and she stopped staring and offered a hand to help me up. I sighed and took it. I looked down at Grace, who rubbed her eyes and sat up.

"Morning Sham." She yawned and stood up next to me.

"Morning Grace." I smiled. Hippolytus rolled over.

"Well off we go then, come, come; Annabeth is waiting in the car!" Hippolytus flew out the door, having slept in his clothes, thus leaving the three of us to pack quickly and run after him. Annabeth was already in the backseat, her nose buried in an architecture book written in Greek.

Grace and I slid into the car next to her and Lilly into the passenger seat. Hippolytus drove off quickly and for the first time I noticed it was five thirty in the morning. "Whoa, slow down we have all day until we need to be in the Underworld, we'll be fine."

"No we only have until noon, then Hippolytus returns to the underworld and we're left in the middle of nowhere." Annabeth informed us, not looking up from her architecture book, as though she was taking in not only what she was reading but also the conversation we were having. It was kind of too creepy and Athena like for my liking.

"Oh, well why do we have to be in the Underworld today?" I asked.

"Because, your mother instructed me to bring you all safely to her, there for I must bring you there or I would have failed!" He smiled back at us in the rearview mirror. I noticed he was good at smiling at the wrong times.

"Okay, but I am perfectly capable of getting us to the underworld." I said.

"Your mother told me you would say that, and when you did she told me to give you this." He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out an envelope, addressed to me.

_Shamrock,_

_ I know what you're going to say 'I am perfectly capable of getting us all to the underworld.' I sent Hippolytus because you have come close to destroying yourself and others many times during these quests and I want to keep you as safe as possible. I trust him and you should to. _

_ Mother_

_P.S. He's bipolar, be careful about what you say._

I sighed, figures, only now he bothers to give me the letter. My mother knew me way too well, she knew what I would say and how I would react. "Fine, you win." Grace looked at me and raised her eyebrows, her eyes staring quizzically at me.

_You should ask her about the infant and Apollo_

_Why would I do that?_

_Because she cares about you._

_What does that have to do with anything?_

_It does, trust me. She might not know what it's about but getting the weight off your shoulders might help._

_Why would I tell her that if she can't help?_

_She cares about you, and I know you won't admit it, but its okay to trust others with things that bother you. _

_Need I remind you that I trusted you three but you still kept my memories from me for a week? _

_Five days, and that's different._

_Not really._

I didn't get a response from Wild though. How was that any different than them keeping my memories from me? I was sure I should tell someone about these dreams but I didn't want to, it was something that I felt I should keep to myself until I figured it out.

Grace was still studying me closely like she was worried about me, she probably was, everyone seemed worried about me lately. Well I _did_ fall off a cliff three months ago, and last month I accidently burned down three tents. Then Last week I fell head first in a lake and, well you get the idea. Grace was now muttering under her breath in Gaelic to herself. I hated it when she did that, it was unnerving, and made me think that she was talking about me, which she probably was

Annabeth was still reading, though she was muttering to herself in Greek about the Parthenon and how they should build a replica of it in its full glory for the camp. Personally I thought that was ridiculous, I like my mom and all but the temple of Diana was huge at one point, to rebuild it in its full glory would make it about twice the size of the Big House.

Hippolytus was singing along to Miley Cyrus, something about her 'just being Miley'. The music was so loud it was a wonder that we hadn't crashed, or driven off a bridge yet. Though with my luck on our side we probably would at some point.

Lilly was reading her book, _Percy Jackson and the Olympians; the Lightning Thief _ by some guy called _Rick Riordan. _So that was the guy who Chiron had gotten to write this all down to help recruit demi-gods, I did wonder about him…

I was the only one who was at war with three aspects of my personality, I usually am the only one who was at war with them. Can't most people just live in harmony with the three metaphysical beings in their heads. Then again most people don't have three metaphysical beings in their head. I didn't even know if Lilly had these three voices.

Lilly

I was really worried about my brother, something about him was different about him. Not just his eyes were different, they were now silver but that wasn't my biggest concern. My biggest concern was that he seemed to be at war with himself, I could see the emotional conflict in his eyes. It got worse when he looked at Grace, she was worried about him too, we all were, he hadn't been himself since he returned from 2001.

He had become more temperamental, and a lot more easily aggravated, last month I had put his socks on the wrong side of the drawer. Shamrock usually does his own laundry, so it wasn't my fault, besides couldn't he just switch the places?

Then only a week after that we were clearing things out of my house in Forks and he got in this huge fight with Jake about Renesme. Something about it being sick and wrong that he was in love with a ten year old. Then they both went wolf on each other, Jake is much bigger than Shamrock but that didn't stop Sham from attacking. Long story short we learned that demi-gods have one less chromosome then the average human and we spent the night under the watchful eye of Carlisle.

Once we got back to the hunt he spent a week in his tent sulking because Jake had rendered his bow arm useless. It took a week to heal and during that time I am fairly sure he devised six hundred diabolical ways of getting him and the rest of his pack back. Why do I think this? Well the bear trap and the stuffed wolf labeled 'Jacob' hanging upside down from a tree was a pretty big hint.

Then there was the time only a week ago he fell head first into a lake. He had been standing on one of the lower branches of a tree while the rest of us were swimming then all we heard was a scream and a splash. About ten seconds later a coughing, spluttering Shamrock popped up, his Auburn hair hanging in his eyes and his tunic clinging to him.

Then we had the caffeine incident and that made things rocky for a couple of days, but that seemed to have blown over, by now. Honestly knowing Shamrock I expected that to go on much longer than necessary, he could be _so_ melodramatic sometimes. I studied my brother in the rearview mirror and I noticed how is features had changed.

His eyes were silver and they were always darting around, his mop of auburn hair was tangled, he looked more like mom then he had a while ago. I was sure of it. His jaw was set, and his nose was twitching around like he was nervous. It wasn't natural, well I'm not actually sure just how natural either of us is but that's not the point. Wait had he grown? No never mind that was just the seating arrangement.

He's so jumpy around Grace now, and the social stuff hasn't gotten better, the other day while I was changing he just walked right in to our tent and he didn't get why he couldn't do that. Yet he seemed to be worried about his appearance around Grace, always straightening his dress (Which he swears is a tunic, but newsflash no one on the planet worn tunics in like three thousand years, at least not guys.) I've tried to get him to dress like a normal guy but he doesn't like the way Jeans rub him, but he wears them higher than his waist so obviously they are going to rub him in certain places if he wears them that high!

He also seemed a little hurt about Orion being our dad, well more so about never having been told that our father was the only man Artemis had ever loved. I had been hurt at first but Orion was a great guy, one who I was glad to have for a father. I was more upset that I hadn't been told that Artemis was my mom too until after Shamrock had fallen off a cliff, but Artemis loved me. I still had a hard time calling Artemis mom, so I just called her Artemis.

I glanced back at Sham who was fiddling around with Orion's belt, it was as though he felt odd wearing it, like it didn't belong to him, or was some kind of foreign disease. Grace put her hand on his arm. It was simple enough but it sent a clear message 'everything will be okay' He rubbed her hand a silent 'I know.' Their means of communication were odd.

That was the final piece to the puzzle he looked more like rugged, more wild, more like dad too, almost as though he was the perfect combination of the two of them. Rugged like he spent time in the forest like dad, but softer skin tone like Artemis, his features were much shaper like dads but his sharp darting eyes like Artemis. I overall looked more like dad but when people say we're identical twins they are wrong, not just because of height and eye color, but because of me looking like dad and Shamrock being a blend of the two.

I saw Shamrock raise his eyebrows at me, I turned back around and faced forward. Hippolytus was singing along to Miley Cyrus. His blue eyes had a moderately insane look to them, and his curly black hair was wild, as though it hadn't been brushed in years. Even though he was now ,dressed in modern clothes you could still tell he wasn't from around here, the jeans were held up with a piece of rope, the T-shirt didn't match what he was wearing very well.

I guess I could see Artemis making friends with someone like this; you couldn't help but take pity on him. His moodiness made him difficult, we had only been in the car for about an hour and he'd already had an outburst when I tried to turn the music down so I had decided that it was best if we didn't even ask to turn it off.

The Underworld

So the bikers had done well intimidating Grace, thus making Shamrock protective. Everything was falling into place, it would all be perfect. He looked into the glass ball and saw that they were now speeding towards LA. Within four hours they would be here. The boy, Sean, rushed into the room.

"You called my lord?" Sean bowed hastily.

"Yes boy I did, they will arrive in the underworld soon. Once they are in the Palace of Hades we must make sure everything goes according to plan. If one step goes wrong then our plan will be ruined. Do you understand me?" He growled.

"Yes sir. Hades must agree to let Orion go with Artemis then we must get Apollo to show himself at the council on Olympus." Sean answered.

"Yes, yes my boy, you are catching on." The figure smiled a cold, evil smile, and nodded at Sean before shooing him away. The boy ran out of the room and he turned back to the crystal ball. "Soon, very soon, my plan will become clear and you will feel my full wrath. Just as I felt the wrath of your mother."

* * *

**Well there we go another chapter out of the way, just two more to go until we reach the end of this part of Shamrock's journey. **


	5. My Dad Wears a Dress

**Wow, there is just one chapter left in this installment. Which is probably my cue to get to work on the fifth and final SotSB. Shamrock though has been unnaturally quiet though which is bad because I am only half way through writing the next one. He's convenient like that though. Also please do review. **

**To Shadow Huntress my only reviewer (I am still lacking in the friends department so odds are if you review you will get recognized for it)  
**

* * *

Five

_ Secret of the Silver Bow Fun Fact 5:The Idea of making Lilly Shamrock's sister didn't come around until I was half way through the second one._

My Dad Wears a Dress

Key – _The Wild_

**_The Conscious_**

**_The Instinct_**

_Shamrock_

Shamrock

We rolled into LA at noon exactly and I watched as the spirit of Hippolytus started to recede. He was an okay guy but I hoped Orion was better in the mood department. Now that I really thought about it I didn't have any idea what we were here for, or where to go in.

"Annabeth you've been to the Underworld before right?" I asked.

"Yeah I have, we need to find DOA, Dead on Arrival Recording Studios. Which is on the out skirts of the-" She was cut off by Grace.

"I found it, it's right down the block!" Grace pointed and sure enough there was a sign that read. _DOA Recording Studios._

_"_Well that's convenient." I said.

We walked down the block and pushed open the door way. I felt cold and sick to my stomach, I sat down quickly.

"Are you okay?" Grace whispered.

"Give me a second to clear my head. I just don't belong here." I said. It was clear Lilly had felt it too. She was sitting next to me and shaking. We didn't belong her, our mother was the goddess of Child birth, this would be nasty, really nasty. "Okay lets go pay the ferry man." I stood up, pulling Lilly after me. Grace reached for my hand, and I put a drachma on the counter, Charon looked up.

"I know you, you're alive! You can't come here!" He stood up and glared at Annabeth. His suit was a brand I recognized.

"Is that Armani?" I asked.

"Yes, why kid?" He snapped, his gaze shifting to settle on me. He must have dealt with kids who are alive before.

"Oh nothing but my Uncle, Apollo, raised me, he has a few." I said and lay another drachma on the table.

Charon scooped them up and looked at me. "Fine, come on kid, quick." He ushered us on to an elevator, I reached for Grace's hand, which she let my take.

Suddenly we were over a river, a river filled with a bubbling green acid like liquid, and items, some toys, stopwatches, just about everything you could have imagined was floating to the surface for a few seconds then sinking back in.

Charon's suit had changed into a ghostly cloak, that was ripped in several places and the boat was more of a raft then a boat at all. If I looked to the right I could see the river Lithe, which was a milky white. A few dozen souls were taking their turns at going into it, the journey to rebirth. That was nothing compared to Hades' palace.

It seemed to shine, which was appropriate seeing as it was made of precious gems. It looked more like it belonged on Olympus. The stalactites and stalagmites jutted out everywhere, the gardens of Persephone shone with fruit, that looked delicious but would render us trapped in the underworld forever if we lay a finger on. The turrets of the palace were magnificent but menacing; I could completely see Nico Di Angelo living here.

Though Nico had mentioned that he disliked his dad, so he only came in the winter when Persephone was here. I guess he liked his step-mom better than Hades himself, I could understand that, though right now I was a little bitter towards my mom because of a few issues with my dad's identity. It felt weird to call Orion 'dad' so I guess I'll just call him Orion.

We docked on the other side, where a shadowed figure leaned against the E-Z death sign. We walked over to the E-z death line but the figure motioned us over. A hood was pulled way up over his head, so no one could see his face, his jeans were black and ripped, the hoody he wore had a skull on it, and I could just make out a lock of thick black hair sticking out of the hood. Nico Di Angelo, the devil himself.

"Are you the one's my dad needs to see?" He asked.

"Nico!" Lilly said as though she was actually happy to see the little flea.

"Lilly, no time for small talk Hades is growing impatient." Nico stood and lead us past Cerberus. Whom he called 'good-boy' and patted as we walked beneath him.

"He's big." I commented.

"Yeah well, we have a lot of souls down here; we need a good guard dog." He said grudgingly I guess we still aren't on good terms, but he seemed to like Lilly just fine.

"Could they leave?" I asked.

"Can babies decide they don't want to be born?" Nico rolled his eyes.

"No."

"Then souls can't leave the underworld."

"You two, stop bickering, we need to make a good impression." Annabeth scolded. I saw Lilly reach down and squeeze Nico's hand and in that second I think I wanted to punch Nico more than I've ever wanted to punch someone, which is to say that I nearly lost my control. You can't touch my sister. It's just against the rules, or it should be and is in my book. Grace saw what was coming and discreetly kicked my leg; I winced but got the message.

I guess the worst part was walking through the Elysium, we were supposed to go through Asphodel but I wouldn't have it so Nico took us the long way. We saw a few hunters whom Grace recognized, they waved at us and she waved weakly back at them. I swear I saw a boy lurking in the shadows, a boy who looked like Grace, but when I turned to get a better look he was gone.

Needless to say by the time we got to the front gate of the palace I was very shaken, and creeped out. I had seen a bunch of souls glowering at me and snarling like they wanted nothing better than to see me get killed slowly and painfully. Being who I am that was just about the hardest part, all those souls all that death in one place, it was sickening.

The gates were made of bones, Human leg bones, capped at the top with skulls, I stared into their empty eye sockets and my stomach rolled. It was the most revolting thing I've ever seen, but Nico waltzed right on through like it was nothing.

"Now, Persephone is gone so Lord Hades is in a bit of a bad mood, just be nice," Nico looked at me here. "Don't say anything offensive and you might escape with your lives." The entire time Nico never broke eye contact with me.

"What Me? Cause problems, when have I ever done anything like that?" I held up my hands innocently, though I'm not sure I was very convincing.

"Shamrock, I'm serious, if you say one wrong thing, you will get yourself and everyone else here killed. I'm telling you this because you seem to have a knack for endangering yourself and the population of America." Nico said.

"Wait hold up," Lilly held up her hands. "You're saying that if Hades gets angry the entire population of America is at stake?"

Nico frowned and cocked his head. "Yes I am, I assumed I had made that much of it clear."

"You did." Lilly said. "But you just put the population in the hands of Shamrock, whom, though I love has a tendency to be a little danger prone."

"I guess I just did." Nico seemed to realize his mistake and grimaced. "Shamrock you realize that you now have the ability to wipe out America right?"

"Yep." I nodded.

"And that includes you?"

"Yeah."

"And that there is nothing the rest of us could do to save you?"

"Uh huh."

"And that I will strangle you if you do get us all killed?" Grace smiled sweetly though her eyes showed that she was deadly serious. (Punny…)

"That seems a bit harsh." I frowned.

"Shamrock." She growled her green eyes seemed to fill with fire.

"Fine, fine, I'll be careful!" I rolled my eyes.

"Good, now let's go meet daddy." Nico sighed and we entered the palace.

If it looked big on the outside that was nothing compared to the inside. The front hall was huge, tapestries hung on the wall, most were of Persephone and Hades, and a few though were of hero's doing valiant things. Skeleton warriors were walking around the room nonchalantly like this was an everyday thing, but when they saw me the hissed and scampered away. I was a child of well, birth and Nico was the dead this was a bad mix. Lilly must have caught the vibe because she shuttered and scooted closer to Nico.

"Oh it's alright, they won't hurt you, but we have little time to explain, come this way." Nico pushed open the door and we strolled right in to the throne room.

There was fire on three sides of the throne room, though the room seemed no hotter than the rest of the underworld; I could hear souls screaming in the fire. I turned my attention to the center of the room where there were two thrones, Hades was seated on one of them, his was made entirely of human bones, and his staff was topped with a skull that had green fire coming out of its eyes.

The throne next to it couldn't have been more different. It was make of sparkling, brightly colored gems in the pattern of flowers. The scent of spring wafted from it and I have to say it was by far more appealing to me.

Next to the throne was my mother, her hunting tunic was clean, her hair was pulled back into a ponytail behind her. A man stood next to her, Orion, his black hair was wavy and he wore a black hunting tunic, not unlike my mother's but not so… _girly_. They were talking in low voices to Hades.

"Mom?" I called. My mother turned around startled at first, then she relaxed and ran over to me smiling.

"Shamrock." She hugged me, then she seemed to realize my eyes weren't green anymore. "What on earth happened to your eyes, did you get hurt?"

"Mom it's fine there was just a slight problem controlling instinct and the eyes are just a last effect." I hugged her back.

"Well I'm glad you're okay. Lilly, did you keep him out of trouble?" She asked.

"Yes Artemis, well I tried anyway. He still managed to pick a fight with Scorpio, a biker gang, steal a Girl Scout van, three cars and get into an argument with Hippolytus over Miley Cyrus." Lilly said.

"Miley Cyrus?" Orion asked.

"It's a long story. Shamrock, Orion is-"

I cut her off. " I know." I spat. "My father."

"Shamrock, try not to sound so bitter." Mom scolded.

"Oh gee, I'm sorry I just wasn't told that the only guy you _didn't _kill, the only guy you loved was my father!" I shouted, all my anger over the past few days boiling over.

"Shamrock, I had a good reason not to tell you, I'm sorry I didn't." My mother protested.

"Oh didn't- What are you doing?" Orion had lifted my off the ground by the back of my tunic and was holding me up to his height. Which was about six foot two. I crossed my arms over my chest, I heard Grace giggle, this may have looked funny from there but not from here it wasn't.

"Don't speak that way to your mother." He snarled.

"Well you knew who your father was didn't you? You grew up in a loving family? Didn't you, _father_" I guess it was a little harsh but then mom got involved.

"Orion put him down, Shamrock apologize!" She ordered.

"He just publicly humiliated me!" I protested pointing at Orion.

"It's not his fault you didn't grow, but look at you two, you have the same temper, the least you can do for me is to try to get along." Mom said, Orion dropped me, and I landed with a thud. I stood up, dusted myself off, and straightened my tunic.

"Fine, I'm sorry." I grumbled.

"Thank you now we need to talk to your great Uncle Hades." My mother turned and walked over to my Uncle.

"Well Artemis, we've been waiting for days, get on with it." Hades brushed a bit of his greasy black hair out of his face. He looked a lot like Nico, sullen, dejected, same black hair (Though Nico looked like he washed his hair) same black eyes and olive skin tone. They both seemed to glare and lurk in the shadows and seemed a bit anti-social.

"Lord Hades, I wish to request that we bring Orion back with us," My mother asked.

"Well Artemis as much as I love you I don't think you can do that. You are an immortal and the only way for him to leave is to go through one of the smaller passages. You may not exit like that though; you must teleport out of here." Hades said.

"What about one of them?" My mother gestured to me and Lilly.

"Yes I suppose they could leave but do they understand that they must not look back until they are out of the underworld?" He asked, looking at me inparticular.

"Yes we understand that." Lilly said. "We know the myth of Orpheus, who looked back to make sure his wife was still fallowing him and ended up getting his wife swept away back through the doors. We fully understand."

"Very well, then Artemis you may take, Annabeth and Grace, these two will take Orion through the passage on their left." Hades gestured to the passage that had opened to the left of us. I couldn't make out the end of it.

"Mother we will be fine, I promise, I won't look back." I said. My mother seemed slightly shaken. Orion touched her shoulder.

"We'll be fine." HE insisted. Grace let go of my hand and came around to look me in the eye.

"If you die while I'm gone I will kill you." She hugged me quickly and went to stand with my mother. I turned and looked at the passage.

"Well of we go, into the dark." I said.

We stepped forward and as soon as we were all in the door slid closed behind us, I decided that if I struck up a conversation with Orion I could make sure that we were all still there.

"So Orion," I said casually. "What makes you think your worthy of my mom?"

"Nothing will ever make me worthy of her, she's perfect and deserves much more than what I can give her." He said.

"Well finally something we can agree on." I rolled my eyes. "So how did you two become friends?"  
"Hunting mostly, we did a lot of that." I could almost hear him smile. "Now I have a question for you. What's going on with you and this Grace girl?"

"Nothing, it's not your business anyway." I snapped.

"Shamrock, I know you haven't had a great past, and you don't really trust people, but neither does she." Lilly said.

"She's right." Orion said. "Sometimes two people with the worst pasts can make the best future."

"Okay stop with the poetics, you sound like Apollo, and I don't like Grace, she's my best friend. Besides it would _never_ work out." I said.

"Sham, you're talking to me." Orion said. "King of relationships that should never work out, just look at me and you mom.

"Two things Orion, One don't ever call me Sham. My name is Shamrock and 2) I don't care what happened with you and my mom, this will never happen." I snarled.

"Okay, okay fine." He went pretty quiet after that.

You are never going to guess where this tunnel let out. My living room. Yeah that's right I ran into the door at the end of the tunnel, it opened and I tumbled head over heels ungracefully into the center of the living room. Lilly and Orion tumbled after me I sat up and looked around. Grace and Annabeth were sitting slightly startled on the couch. Grace was holding the baby Apollo had been caring for.  
Apollo waltzed in and looked at us. "Well it's about time you got here; I see you found the entrance located in our house!"

I stared at him blankly for a few seconds before I said; "There's been an entrance to the underworld in our house for sixteen years and you've never told me!"

He shrugged it off. "You've never asked."

"Like that's a normal question; 'Hey Apollo is there an entrance to the underworld that I should know about?'" I was pretty annoyed at this, he gives us a quest to the underworld, and conveniently forgets to mention that we have an entrance in our house.

"Well Shamrock let's face it this is you we are talking about." Apollo said. I looked at Grace and the baby.

"Who's that?" I asked.

"I don't know but she's so-o-o cute!" Grace cooed.

"Where's my mom?" Was my next question.

"I'm right here." She said, she smiled at Orion and ran to hug him. That was it, no kiss, no nothing, just a hug. I guess my mom wasn't too big on PDA which was good because I was still in the mood to punch something, hard.

Apollo smiled at them "Aw, look at that, sis has Orion back!"

"Yes, now whose kid is that?" I asked, pointing to the baby Grace was snuggling.

"Babysitting." Apollo said quickly and uncomfortably. "Anyway, sis you are wanted on Olympus for an emergency conference, Orion and I can watch the kids, and we'll have a party after words."

"Yes well I had better be going. Shamrock," My mom turned on me. "No falling off cliffs."

"Does that happen often?" Orion gulped.

"No going back in time." Mom listed

"Again, does this happen often?" Orion was going slightly pale, and was rubbing the back of his head nervously.

"No vampire fights." She looked at me sternly

"Vampire fights?" Orion's eye twitched, as though he was about to go insane on us.

"And no fire." My mother was very firm about this whole thing.

"Fire?" Orion muttered.

"Gods mom I won't do anything that drastic." I siad.

"Shamrock." She warned.

"Okay fine, I'll sit here and be a good boy." I rolled my eyes. "Besides would I do anything like that?"

"I'm not going to answer that, but thank you, I'll be back soon." My mom hugged me tightly, I hugged her back. When she let go she looked me and Lilly over and muttered something about getting a leash. "Don't worry Orion, he'll be good."

"What about Lilly?" HE asked.

Mom laughed. "He's the trouble maker, not Lilly. Lilly just gets drug into these things."

"Oh." Orion muttered, my mom ran out the door and in a flash of silver light and was gone. Orion looked at me like I was a nuclear bomb about to go off at any minute. I grinned at him demonically.

"Shamrock." Grace warned. I scowled and rolled my eyes.

"Fine, I'll be good." I sighed and sat next to her. She was still cuddling the baby who was asleep.

"What's her name?" I asked.

"Aikatrina." Grace said, I wasn't going to tell Grace that this baby was dying but I looked up and Apollo and I was sure he knew that I knew about it. Apollo mouthed 'I'll explain later' Annabeth was reading a book on the couch, and I jumped, completely unaware that she had been here these last couple of minutes

"Orion, don't just stand there you're creeping me out a little bit." Apollo motioned for Orion to come sit down. He sat awkwardly next to me and I scooted a little bit closer to Grace.

Apollo turned on HBO and some movie about a single mom was on, I didn't really pay any attention to it and after about an hour I went up to my room. I collapsed on to my bed. I hadn't slept here in months and the last time I did the hunters were all here, it was nice to have my room to myself. I need my space and the hunt just doesn't give me that.

The sun was setting outside the window, and the moon would be up soon. I sighed, and closed my eyes. I only realized that I had fallen asleep when Grace came and woke me up. I looked at her; she was just watching me from the door, it was kind of creepy.

"Sorry, I was supposed to wake you up, but I couldn't. Anyway Apollo wants you to put this on, we're going to Olympus." She threw me a dark brown suit and left the room. I sighed and changed quickly. Then I looked in the mirror, and combed my hair over to the side, and flattened it. Then I went down stairs to wait with the others, Orion was standing looking very uncomfortable in his suit, or maybe he looked uncomfortable because he was holding a sleeping baby, in a very nice pale green dress. He waved with one hand at me.

"Do you want to take this?" He asked, motioning at the baby. The poor guys looked desperate and a bit distressed, but that didn't make me sympathize with him. I still didn't like him.

"Not really." I shook my head. "Where are the girls?"

"Changing." He said. Apollo came down stairs in his favorite white suit. I scowled this wasn't good, if we were all dressing nicely it meant that I had to be good which -now this might be hard to believe - I have a hard time with.

Lilly came down next, her dress was a silvery white, her hair was down and she looked way too pretty to be my sister. Grace was just behind Lilly and to say she looked beautiful is an understatement. Her dress was green and fluttery, she had left her hair along and wore no makeup, she looked like Grace. The dress was innocent, yes seemed just right for girls of her age group, but it was a little low cut...

Apollo ruffled my hair and broke my concentration. I scowled and looked up at him. He gave me one of those secret Apollo smiles.

"Hey where's Annabeth?" I asked.

"She went to camp, I drove her." Apollo said. I nodded. "Well let's go its eight o'clock and Arty will kill me if we're late.

Lilly

When Grace came down stairs to say the look on Shamrock's face was good would be the understatement of the year. The look on his face was _priceless_ and I really wished I had gotten a picture. Backtracking to when Grace and I were getting ready, Grace looked pretty uncomfortable.

"It's a bit low cut isn't it?" She asked, self-consciously pulling the neck line up.

"No, god's Grace you act like it's a crime to show anything below the collar bone." I rolled my eyes at here.

"It's not but I want to be looked in the eye." She muttered. I turned around and looked at her.

"Grace, Shamrock doesn't look at things like that, he focuses on inner beauty." I sighed.

"He's a teenaged boy." Grace said.

"Who knows as much about girls as a nine year old." I pointed out.

"He _knows_ as much about girls as a nine year old but he is still in the mindset of a teenager." She argued.

"I know my brother he doesn't care about how you look, to him that's just an added bonus; he cares about how he's treated." I insisted.

"Fine I'll wear it but no make-up, or hair things." She insisted.

"Fine." I grumbled, I had been really looking forward to putting some make-up on Grace, but if she would wear the dress (It really wasn't that low,) I was happy. We went down stairs, Grace somewhat behind me, as though she was scared to go down stairs and look at Shamrock, or rather be looked at by Shamrock

Shamrock cleaned up nicely, his hair was combed and his suit was clean, he even looked clean, which was something new considering that he always looked somewhat grubby and like a wild child. He even smiled a bit when he saw Grace.

Then we piled into the back of the sun chariot, Orion fumbled around but finally buckled in Aikatrina, who was still asleep as Apollo had fed her before Shamrock woke up. I sat on one side of Sham and Grace on the other, my poor brother looked very distressed at having to girls on both sides of him, I swear that boy is way to jumpy.

Shamrock

I was uncomfortable, and even that was an understatement. Grace was sitting on one side of me looking extremely nice (Well she can always pull that off) and Lilly was on the other side slowly, and discreetly pushing me closer to Grace. I did everything I could to not think about how close we were. I thought about everything else.

The dying baby, Orion, my mom, Apollo, what had happened in the last few days, I even resorted to thinking about those movies Apollo liked about the vampires. I had to stoop that low to avoid thinking of Grace, how she looked didn't really matter, I guess it would help if she was mean but she wasn't she was the nicest girl I knew (Other than my mom but even she could turn nasty) sure we fought sometimes, and spent time wanting to kill each other but we still got along great most of the time.

When we finally touched down on Olympus I was the first person out of the chariot. We still had a twenty minute walk to get to the throne room where this formal get together was being held. Apollo had brought along a stroller, in which he settle Aikatrina in and we started the walk up the side of the mountain.

There were wood nymphs everywhere, they smiled and waved and flirted with me. It made me a bit uncomfortable but I shrugged it off. The trees were beautiful, there were all the normal trees and then there was the Olympian variety. The silver and gold olive grove, the gardens of solitude had trees with silver leaves, taking on the color of the last person to be in the garden, my mother. There were satyrs playing the reed pipes in a pavilion with the wood nymphs gathered around them.

When we were about half way to the palace the walk way changed to murals of the gods, my mother's was the first one I saw, so I assumed then went in birth order, but Apollo told me they went in order of who had the most power, which didn't seem right because I'm sure my mother had way more power then Aphrodite. Zeus' was at the top; he looked angry and was throwing lightning down, the lighting on the mural actually moved. I guess he was supposed to look fierce but to me he just looked kind of crabby.

The throne room was amazing. All the thrones seemed to glow with a divine light, and the Olympians were milling around drinking Nectar, I couldn't help but wonder what this party was for. Annabeth saw me and ran over.

"So what do you think?" She asked.

"Um it's great, but what's the party for?" I asked.

"Oh, we finally finished rebuilding Olympus!" She gushed. "I think I did a great job, how about you?" She straightened her grey dress as Athena walked over.

"Hello Annabeth, you did phenomenal but I am here to speak with Shamrock." She said. I was a bit surprised and Annabeth looked a little hurt, I looked around for Grace, she was talking to Lady Aphrodite about something which was strange, but I shrugged it off and turned to Athena.

"Yes Lady Athena?" I asked.

"Shamrock, I know you are having a difficult time trying to cope with Orion as your father figure." She led me outside to a grove of olive trees.

"Why would you think that?" I asked.

"Shamrock Orion Clover, don't even deny it, I recognize these things. I once had trouble coming to terms with my father. I know things will be problematic - this is you we're talking about - but you can always talk to your mother." She insisted.

"I guess, but my mother will be busy with something else." I said.

"She will never be too busy for you though, you are her child and she cares for you." Athena chided.

"She only ever wanted a daughter, and I'm a boy." I looked at my feet; this was something that had been bothering me for a while now, since Lilly joined the hunt.

"Shamrock, you may be a boy but that doesn't change the fact that you're her child. She will always love you and you can always talk to Orion too." Athena tried.

I laughed. "Yeah right, the guy isn't there for my entire life, and now you expect _me_ of all people, to go and ask him if I need help?"

"You have to start somewhere." Athena nodded.

"Why are you doing this?" I questioned.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, it's not for you. I'm doing this for your mother." She frowned.

"Of course you are." I sighed.

"Don't be petulant with me! I am only doing this because little Artemis is somewhat anxious for you and Orion to get along. The relationship between father and son is vitally important. She worries about you; you're a little too audacious." Athena scolded

"What does that even mean?" I Asked.

"Audacious means, reckless, and petulant means to be very suddenly irritating." She said.

"I know what those mean, but what do you mean I'm reckless?" I asked.

"Shamrock, you got a virulent bite from a vampire, went back in time, set Ellis Island on fire, fell off a cliff, time traveled to the revolutionary war, fought your mothers hunters in 2001, and nearly got yourself wiped of the face of the planet by a giant scorpion. How are you not audacious?" Athena raised her eyebrows.

"Point made." I grumbled.

"Good, now, promise me you will try to get on good terms with your father?" She pushed.

"Fine I'll try."

She patted my head. "Good boy, now I believe Grace needs to talk to you." She turned and went back inside. Grace stepped out of the throne room.

"There you are!" She exclaimed. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"

"Why?" I wondered.

"Well, we need to talk." She insisted, biting her lip nervously

"Um, Grace ,the last time we did that I fell off a cliff." I pointed out.

"Well do you see a cliff around here?" She raised her eyebrows. "No. Good neither do I, but I'm sure if you really want one you can find one."

"Okay then," I tried to ignore the fact that she was standing a foot away from me and that if I wanted to I could just reach over and grab her hand. I didn't have to though; she reached over and grabbed mine. I jumped, startled by her sudden, unexplained actions.

"Shamrock, I was inside talking to Lady Aphrodite." She started slowly and carefully like she didn't really know where she was going with this.

"Yeah I know. Why?" I asked.

"Well, that bit was personal but she gave me some advice. She said that the longer I kept my feelings to myself the more self-destruction I would cause, and I have experience in holding everything in until I reach a breaking point. She also said that you needed to know these things, because if you didn't we would slowly destroy each other." Grace said.

"What things?" I frowned, if Aphrodite had been messing with Grace I would have a bone to pick with her, not that I already didn't have a bone to pick with her, in fact I had several bone's to pick with her.

"Well the effects of caffeine, not only make me speak pretty much nonsense, but they also make me speak the truth, even if I don't know what I feel, or am confused about it." She said

"Okay so you're telling me that you think the hunter's outfits are adorable?" I raised my eyebrows, because if it was anything else then it was that I was cute, which was weird.

"What, when did I say that?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Never mind it was a while ago, just go on." I insisted.

"Shamrock, they say love hurts, but this could kill me." She said, I nodded, even though I didn't really understand what was going on. "I wasn't lying when I said I loved you."

"W-wait you mean…" I trailed off she locked her green eyes with mine.

"Yes, Shamrock I love you." As soon as she said those words I felt a part of me fall away and I crumbled to the ground.

The Underworld

So, this wasn't exactly how he had planned things working out, but it would do, he was flexible. Besides, why would he let sixteen years of careful watching, and coordinating certain events to certain times go to waste just because of a small flaw in the plan? This could all be fixed and it would all be fixed. All he had to do was wait for the right time and he was good at waiting.

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**Okay now to go get over writers block... -ToThineOwnSelfBeTrue101/ Ginny**


	6. Everything is AlrightHopefullyMaybe

**Okay I know this is early but we get our stuff tomorrow and I don't think I will be able to update then. **

* * *

Chapter Six

_Secret of the Silver Bow Fun Fact 6: Chapter 3 of **Fire and Ice**__ was written on two hours of sleep, a pot of coffee and upbeat music while I was sick._

Everything is Going To Be Alright

_Key – The Wild_

**_The Conscious_**

**_The Instinct_**

_Shamrock_

Shamrock

**_No! This is wrong NO!_**

I felt as though a part of me was being ripped out. A part of who I was had disappeared and something foreign had slithered up to take its place, something that didn't belong in my core, and certainly didn't come from Artemis. It was terrifying, and yet I felt more human than I had before, more like I could feel something others could, but I previously hadn't been able to. This thing was perhaps what made me different from my mother, this would make me different from her for the rest of my life.

I looked up at Grace and for the first time I saw her in a whole new light. Her red hair cascaded down her shoulders like a perfect waterfall of fire, her green eyes were the perfect shade of emerald, that seemed to read me like a book. The sleeveless dress she was wearing seemed to hug the curve of her waist. Her shoulders were pale and smooth, and when she was bent over like that the neckline of the dress was just shorter so I could just-

**_No! Not there look away_**!

I must have looked pretty pathetic, or upset sitting there gaping, because Grace knelt next to me and put and arm around me. "Are you okay?" She asked.

"Y-yeah fine, I think Aphrodite just did something funny to me." I said weakly I had never felt this exposed or weak in my life, it was terrifying.

"Um, no hon." Aphrodite's voice came from behind Grace. "How do you feel?"

"Well like I'd go to the end of the world and back, like I will never be good enough, like I want her to trust me, I want her to love me." I was really confused, more confused than I have ever been in my life. What was this new feeling?

"Well hon that would be called _love_ you developed it on your own. The other things are typical male human nature that only surfaced after you realized you loved her." She said waving her hand like it didn't matter that I had just perhaps set in place the biggest disaster of all time (Just my luck) or given my mother a lot more to handle with two dozen teenage girls, Orion, and a hormonal teenage boy, the only that could give her more trouble was a baby, but even my luck isn't that bad.

I looked at Grace. "We should go back in now." She nodded and we walked back into the party, though I was still shaking and more confused than I had ever been in my life.

Lilly

This was not good. Well okay, duh, that much should have been obvious I had looked at Nico and realized I was in love with him. Which me being a child of Artemis was bad enough, I shouldn't feel any romantic love, but for a child of the dead to be the one I love? That's just six different kinds of wrong, even Shamrock couldn't mess up as much as I had this time around. Nico came over and frowned at me.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"No." I muttered, shaking a bit from the mixed sense of detesting being this close to death and the joy that I he was noticing me.

"What's wrong?" He whispered, as though he could sense that this was something to be kept quiet.

"I'm in love." I managed to get out.

"I don't think that's generally a bad thing." Nico frowned, he was probably right, most people embrace and enjoy love. Not me.

"I'm in love with you." I managed again, he looked hurt, well okay he should look hurt.

"And there's the catch, she's in love with the son of death and she hates it. Gee that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside doesn't it?" Nico rolled his eyes, scowled and turned away from me. I grabbed his shoulders and made him turn around. I pressed my lips to his. He pulled away looking bewildered.

"I never said I hated it, but the last thing I need is for my family to find out." I told him.

"Your mom would kill me." Nico nodded, rubbing his throat as though to make sure it was still there.

"Then my brother would make you more dead." I said, Shamrock and his over protectiveness would kill Nico as fast as one could say 'hi'.

"Not possible. Luckily." Nico muttered, well he would know.

Shamrock

My mom was arguing with Apollo (Nor surprise there) in a low tone while Orion held the baby (didn't see that one coming, Orion looked terrified of the baby). I walked over to him he frowned when he noticed me. It's nice to know I was so loved by everyone; they all seem to frown when I come around.

"What are they arguing about?" Grace wondered, which seemed like a stupid question, they argue all the time.

"Me." Orion sighed as though this was old news to him. "They are arguing about me, which is apparently still Apollo's favorite thing to argue about."

"Was it his favorite thing to argue about back when you are alive the first time?" I asked.

"Yeah it was, he used to hate me. I think we're on better terms now but I had to die once to get those better terms." He said.

"I take it you aren't even going to try for great terms?" I asked.

"No, I had to die by an arrow through the heart from your mother to get on better terms , I don't even want to know what good terms will take." Orion chuckled, and shifted the baby's position.

"Where did you get Aikatrina?" I asked him. He frowned like he didn't know what I was talking about, I rolled my eyes. "The baby?"

"Oh, Apollo." He answered switching his hold on the baby to the other arm.

Grace furrowed her brow. "Shamrock, she looks like you." She frowned, again with the frowning, I thought I was a cute baby, if Aikatrina looked anything like me then she should take that as a huge complement.

"What? No she doesn't!" I insisted, but I looked at the baby, other than her back hair and the dress she did look a lot like the pictures of me when I was a baby. The same round, tiny head, small, bunny slope nose, and itty bitty fingers (Well I guess the itty bitty fingers are a baby thing) she was even really tiny like me, she fit in Orion's hand. Yeah the guy had big hands but that was still tiny for a baby.

Aikatrina yawned and made a little squeaking noise like a puppy, or a mouse being stabbed with a fork (Not going to explain that one). My mom and Apollo turned slowly, as though mesmerized, than Aikatrina opened her eyes. Her big bright, silver, eyes identical to my moms, and now my own, I knew why Apollo was working so hard to keep her asleep when anyone else was around. I think Orion nearly dropped her in surprise when he made the connection, Mom walked over and looked at the child, and the realization in her eyes was instantaneous.

"Apollo." My mother's voice was deadly calm. I realized the entire throne room had now gone quiet as they watched the exchange between them, Orion handed the baby to me, and grabbed the back of my mother's tunic, like he knew what was coming. "Is there something you need to tell me?"

"Um, surprise?" Apollo gulped and did jazz hands, which don't ever do anything to help a situation, especially one like this. I'm pretty sure that had Orion not been holding on to her she would have lunged and killed Apollo, or tried to kill him. She probably would have gotten pretty darn close too, but Orion had a good hold on her. No doubt she could have broken out of it but there was some kind of clear message between them.

"You mean to tell me you created _another_ child?" Mom growled, her eyes burning with silver fire, if I was Apollo I would have told the truth as quickly as possible then gotten out of there. Obviously though Apollo was immortal, and though I may be somewhat cocky, and perhaps a bit audacious, even I could tell what my mother was thinking at that very moment. That she would try her best to kill Apollo.

"Well, no, not me, this one jut appeared on my door step late at night, but Arty, she's dying. I'd be surprised if she made it six months." Apollo said. At this my mother looked heart broken, she hated anything dying. She came over to me and took Aikatrina, and held her protectively.

"Milady," Orion started.

"Orion, if we're going to raise three children you had better start calling me Artemis." She smiled one of her secret smiles, the ones few people ever got out of her.

Within fifteen minutes the entire event with my mom and Apollo had pretty much blown over, the hunters and I were sitting on the side lines of the dance. A few demi-gods danced, I saw Nico dancing with my sister, Percy with Annabeth. Thalia and Percy even danced once, something about a cousin thing, my mother sat on the side with Orion.

Lilly came over and nudged me. "Ask her."

"Ask who?" I wondered, though I knew who she was talking about.

"You know who I'm talking about." She insisted.

"No really, who?" I muttered.

"Shamrock Orion Clover, you had better ask Grace to dance with you!" She pushed, her eyes narrowing.

"But she said she loves me." I protested, I still felt really weird about that, but Lilly didn't find it to be much of a protest, as she rolled her eyes at me.

"All the more reason to do it, now go." Lilly pushed me off the chair and in Grace's general direction. I sighed and walked over to Grace.

"Um Grace?" I asked, shuffling my feet nervously.

She looked up. "Yeah Sham?" I couldn't help but notice that she seemed a little distracted with something, like she was trying to make a very difficult decision.

"Would you like to Dance?" I asked.

She smiled one of her special Grace smiles. "Sure Sham, I'll dance with you." She pulled me out on to the dance floor.

She actually turned out to be a pretty good slow dancer; I bet I was awful though I was shaking from the nerves and tension of being this close to Grace, my hands were sweaty and I was probably stepping on her toes.

"Relax, Sham I don't bite." She said. I sighed and tried to relax. Guess what? It actually worked I relaxed enough to loosen my death grip on Graces hands,

"Grace, I don't like this." I whispered.

"What dancing?" She asked.

"No, I don't like having Orion for a father, and I don't want a little sister." I whispered to her.

"Sham, Change is always accompanied by some discomfort, but over time we grow used to it." She muttered comfortingly, though I guess she would know this better than I would. We went back to dancing in silence and then the song changed. "Now for this on you are going to have to put a hand on my waist." She saw my hesitation. "It's okay, we don't have to dance." She led me off the floor to the foot of my mother's throne, slightly hidden so we couldn't be seen.

"G-Grace, I need to tell you something." I stammered.

"What?" She asked she was really calm about it. I guess that's the oldest sibling gene, the ability to be calm when people are terrified.

"I love you too." I whispered, and it wasn't as scary as I thought it would be but I was sure I saw a hint of fear in her eyes but only for a second. Then her face became expressionless, I realized though that she was as scared as I was about this.

She managed one of her smiles and said. "I know you do."

It was in that second I knew that everything would be alright, at least until I came close to destroying the world and those who inhabit it again, so maybe a month, but for now, everything was alright again, we were at peace. Who knows maybe this would be it. Knowing me though probably not.

The End (Or is it…)

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**Okay I really hat to say it but i don't know when I will update again. Or even if the next one will be coming. I don't even have it half done, and I don't know if or when it will be finished. What I'm saying is that s could be November before I see you again but it could also be as early as September. **

**I am at the complete mercy of Shamrock here, and he isn't talking right now. I suppose when he does I'll write it but I don't know when that will be.  
**


End file.
